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 …

The early 20th century’s Social Gospel was a cocktail of ideas achieved through the blending of Enlightenment philosophy and Socinian theology. The Enlightenment had promised an egalitarian society founded on human reason. The post-Reformation heresy known as Socinianism had proclaimed a human-centered salvation, also founded on reason. Together they proved to be a potent tonic for the relief of liberal anxiety over society’s huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

But not everyone was drinking it. Continue reading …

Apparently not their liberalism—a liberalism that in most cases has one foot planted in politics and the other in theology. As the politically-liberal blogosphere has followed in the footsteps of its older-media kin by granting the traditional obligatory coverage to the Easter holiday season, I’ve noticed that the positioning of these two feet has remained generally consistent with what I’ve come to expect from from the likes of Time and Newsweek down through the years, with one key difference: where the older media tried to at least feign a kind of critical “distance” from the subject of religion under the premise of journalistic objectivity, today’s bloggers do not appear so constrained. Their postmodernist impressment of Christian themes into the service of a liberal political agenda bears a striking resemblance to the nearly-identical modernist practice of 100 years ago. Continue reading …