Even though the election “season” hasn’t officially begun, it seems to be in full swing. President Obama will be the unchallenged candidate for the Democrat party and pool of possible candidates for the Republican party seems to be ever expanding. Obviously, MCOI cannot come out in support of a particular candidate or party but as with the last presidential election and the mid-term election, the candidates themselves have given us the opportunity to comment on religious questions. In addition to our Journal article, Barack and the Borg we have done over 30 blog articles on faith and politics. This week I read Chuck Baldwin’s article Letter from an Agnostic and was able to catch John Stossel’s Continue reading …

Many of us are somewhat disconnected from history. The recently released Report: Student don’t know much about U.S. history is but one example.

“Just 13 percent of high school seniors who took the 2010 National Assessment of Educational Progress, called the Nation’s Report Card, showed a solid grasp of the subject.”

The study revealed that most students couldn’t identify Martin Luther King Jr or Abraham Lincoln and couldn’t say why they are important. Being somewhat a student of history I can say, I am not overly surprised. Since the 1930s Continue reading …

Since both Don and I are under the weather this week, we will forgo our usual cultural criticism in favor of some straightforward thinking about the Christian life. I was rereading Mere Christianity the other day and came upon this passage:

The ordinary idea which we all have before we become Christians is this. We take as starting point our ordinary self with its various desires and interests. We then admit that something else call it
“morality” or “decent behaviour,” or “the good of society” has claims on this self: claims which interfere with its own desires. What we mean by “being good” is giving in to those claims. Some of the things the ordinary self wanted to do turn out to be what we call “wrong”: well, we must give them up. Other things, which the self did not want to do, turn out to be what we call “right”: well, we shall have to do them. But we are hoping all the time that when all the demands have been met, the poor natural self will still have some chance, and some time, to get on with its own life and do what it likes. In fact, we are very like an honest man paying his taxes. He pays them all right, but he does hope that there will be enough left over for him to live on.

Continue reading …

Anyone who pays any attention at all to the news has at least some knowledge of Anthony Weiner and his penchant for sharing photos of a sexual nature or himself with women he has never met. Another news item which may not have been as widely reported was the claim that Global war on drugs ‘has failed’ say former leaders. As I look at these stories, the big question they raise to me has to do with morals, society and expectations. Continue reading …

Ah, spring is in full swing. Flowers are in bloom, the trees have leaves, lawns are in full growth and, the dreaded mosquito is on the scene. Even as I thought about this last week, Joy and I were listening to an audio book while on our route to and from California. The book, A Rule Against Murder: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel by Louise Penny . It is a well done murder mystery set in Canada, at a large log built resort building in the woods by a lake with no internet. What does that have to do with mosquitoes? Well, everything. With the wonderful setting also comes Continue reading …