For those not in the know, StackExchange is a Q&A type of site that tries to get good info to float to the top.
Labels: religion, technology
Let me summarize the Administration's position in my own words:
The fifth amendment doesn't apply to him, because we're accusing him of exercising his first amendment rights.
Now we just need to implement a
certain British diocese's proposal to make blogging illegal and we can start eliminating some of the more subversive elements in our political system, like me.
Labels: politics, trends
In explaining what the after-life may look like, Fr. Groeschel does make reference to Dante's Inferno, but he places much more of an emphasis The Dream of Gerontius by John Henry Newman and other poetic and theological sources. Fr. Groeschel writes as he speaks - clear and directly, with occasional anecdotal or humorous tidbits to spice up the narrative.
Fr. Groeschel is, as always, well grounded in history, theology, psychology, science, and the literary, giving a very well-rounded shape to his discussions of heaven, hell, and purgatory. For a short book (only about a 100 pages) he packs a punch. There is much worthy of rereading in this thought-provoking book. I read it rather quickly, but I have already gone back over sections to read it slowly and ponder more deeply some of the content. The book is theologically dense, and yet a pleasurable and easy read. Fr. Groeschel explains the divine in human terms, and makes some of the more difficult concepts quite simple and graspable.
I had the pleasure of hearing Fr. Groeschel speak last winter in Albany, NY, where I purchased this book and had the chance to receive Fr. Groeschel's blessing and autograph. The talk was on life after death, a subject of much interest to me these days, but I have not gotten to the book till recently. This topic seems to come up a lot, especially in my work as a catechist, so I am glad I finally got around to reading this short book. I recommend it to all who catechize, defend the faith, or are simply curious as to what our eternal moment with the Lord might be like. If you sit with this text it may well impact your faith-life, as it has mine.
Labels: books, religion
I contend that Planned Parenthood is directly to blame for an increase in unplanned pregnancies: they do everything they can to preach the gospel of everyone having as much sex as possible, so of course pregnancies go up. There is . . . I’m almost dying here, with the sheer stupidity of having to say so . . . a connection between sex and babies.
Blasphemy!
Labels: humor, prolife, quotes
I read this book at the insistence of a loving relative in the aftermath of the passing of my father. I suppose she thought it would be consoling to hear how a four-year boy had a near death medical experience and had a divine encounter. The child vividly describes heaven in details that seem to me to be largely Scripturally and doctrinally sound.
First of all, and this is just my personal aversion, I can't deal well at this point with gruesome medical details, which dominate the first 40 pages or so of the short book. That is my own sensitivity and it is tender territory for me. So many of the details reminded me of my own father's suffering, but my father did not have the happy ending this boy did of total recovery that would outshine the shadow of death he was under. So instead of finding it consoling, I found it painful to relive some of those terrible details of suffering.
In fact I put down the book for three months and read other things, but finally came back to it as I intended to finish and return the book before I returned to visit my aunt who leant it to me. In concluding the book, I did find it much more uplifting when I got past the medical drama and delved into the messages of heaven this toddler was delivering up to his parents and the world. I began the book as a skeptic, but by the end I do believe this child had a rare divine encounter of the eternal. Many of the details were fascinating to read, and sweetly told from a child's perspective. I was touched by how his message helped others to heal. His experiences of encountering his older sister and great-grandfather in heaven provided much healing to his mother and grandmother, and others as well.
As sweetly moving as this story is, I found the writing-quality to be very poor. I understand that the main author is a simple man, a minister and owner of a garage-door business, who never had aspirations to be a published author. However, it is co-authored by Lynn Vincent, a published author of several titles, and so one would rightly expect better. The writing comes across as childish. Details are included that seem rather irrelevant, and details that hint at powerful and interesting side-stories are mentioned briefly. The hinting at the author's father's bipolar disorder, the car-crash that ended his grandfather's life that seemed like a suicide, and the small-town life of rural Nebraska are details that intrigued me, but were sadly underdeveloped.
The poor writing I was able to get past, but I am afraid that it won't translate to more sophisticated readers, such as the New York cognoscenti. I am afraid I would have a tough time trying to convince my intellectual friends to take this book seriously. However the book is a New York Times bestseller in the one year it has been out and a hardcover edition is coming out in November. I am guessing that most readers are coming from the middle of the country, and that this book has an evangelical bent to it, but is most likely to be read by people who are already Christian and believe in an after-life.
What did intrigue me was the non-Protestant details that this son-of-a-minister included in his experience of heaven: an emphasis on the wounds of Christ, Mary's presence beside Jesus, the communion of saints, etc. But some of these details I think were overlooked by the father. For example Mary is only mentioned in the epilogue, and the father/author seems surprised by the communion of saints and his son's description of Christ's wounds, but doesn't do much more than note them.
One detail that disturbed me was when the child becomes fixated on a dead man in a casket who was not a member of the church, and he insistently asks, "Did he have Jesus in his heart?" with a trembling and anxiety that shook him to the core. One can see the fundamentalist belief played out, that the only way to heaven is through faith in Christ, and all others are damned. It seems to upset the boy that someone might be excluded from the eternal paradise, and indeed it disturbs me too. Not that I think heaven is guaranteed for all, but that faith in Christ is something we can't fully control. Faith is a great gift and the surest means to being eternally united in God's love, but it is something that we can't fully control. Faith is a gift and often a product of one's circumstances in life, to whom and what culture one is born into, and so we cannot presume that God's mercy will not be extended to those who have sought God in their life, but for whatever reasons did not have faith in the triune God.
To summarize, I think the boy's experiences are real and the story moving, and by the numbers of the books sold, his story is clearly touching people's lives, but only certain types of people. I would not recommend this book to someone who isn't already Christian or who can't stand poor writing and a few theological errors.
I am reading another book on life after death that I am finding more helpful and will review shortly upon finishing.
Labels: books, faith, religion
Of interest to the Columbia University crowd.
Labels: books, education, New York
I learned little about the law at Harvard Law School. This was partly due to my own laziness, and partly due to professors whose teaching pointlessly focused on ideologically-trendy but atypical situations, or hide-the-ball Socratic dialogue. (For example, my property instructor was obsessed with sexual harassment of lesbians by tenants).
Seriously though, a good discussion on why law school and the practice of law aren't super-connected.
Labels: education, quotes
