Sen. Ted Cruz's campaign tweeted that we need "the Body of Christ" to "rise up" in political action. Pundit Kathleen Parker thought Cruz was calling on Jesus to rise from the grave and serve his campaign. Wow. The ignorance there is staggering. Prof. Anthony Esolen breaks it down here. http://aleteia.org/2016/01/17/kathleen-parker-and-the-strange-heresy-of-ted-cruz/
Columnist Ross Douthat on the progressive mentality that the Church and its faith are always in flux with everything up for grabs--that it is always Year Zero: http://nyti.ms/1SxYIYS
George Weigel asks priests to stop treating Mass like an improv class: http://nyti.ms/1SxYIYS
Enjoy!
Hi Nick! I appreciate the miscellaneous links as always.
ReplyDeleteI am, however, a bit conflicted about the first link. It seems to take an unkind view of an admittedly ignorant pundit. It sounds rather like 'everybody point and laugh at the moron who doesn't know the first thing about a faith that she probably doesn't share'. The author goes on to a laundry list of Christian themed works of art and lumps the experience of those in with both particular knowledge of Christian faith, and by analogue, basic knowledge that everyone has.
It might be my own anecdotal experience, but I feel like Christianity as a whole is being affected by a kind of "creeping entitlement"; a feeling that because we as a group believe in these things, we're entitled to have everyone else believe them too. Therein lies my frustration with the article. The author seems to think he's entitled to a better class of pundit, who knows about Christianity, or better yet, believes the exact same way as him. The stark reality is that there a lot of people out there, and not all of them believe in or even understand Christianity. I somehow doubt that merely expecting people to have the knowledge or experience of Christianity will win many converts.
Would it not be better to take an attitude of love and kindness toward this person who showed ignorance of something we take for granted? Use this instance to call people to live their lives as Christ would have us live, and be luminous examples that the unknowing would wish to understand or emulate.