Fresh Faces May Have a Chance in November 2010

An article from the March 1 edition of The Weekly Standard.

The Manhattan Declaration, Again, and Words from Chuck Colson

Chuck Colson on The Manhattan Declaration:

What we are witnessing today in America is a titanic struggle between two antithetical worldviews: Secular naturalism and Christianity. The one side holds there is no God, that we humans are nothing but a complex amalgamation of atoms—glorified germs whose ancestors arose from the primordial soup. The other holds that God created the universe, His physical and moral laws are observable and knowable, and that He created man in His image—endowing man with a sacred dignity and free will.

We see this struggle all around us. In the classroom, the courtroom, and on Capitol Hill. If man is nothing special, then why not abortion, why not cloning, why not experiment with human embryos? If there is no moral law, no ultimate truth, why not same-sex marriage, why not enshrine individual preference as the ultimate arbiter of human conduct, why not borrow money you can’t repay—who cares how it might affect others?

Check out The Manhattan Declaration today and sign it!

Balsamic Vinegar and the 20th Anniversary Issue of First Things

The March Edition of First Things, published by the Institute on Religion and Public Life, is the 20th Anniversary Issue. What a treasure. Like aged balsamic vinegar, this latest issue is a distillation; a distillation of 20years of articles. This anniversary issue begins with the editorial from the magazine's premier edition. Here are two paragraphs from that editorial:

The first meaning of First Things is that, for the sake of both religion and public life, religion must be given priority. While religion informs, enriches, and provides a moral foundation for public life, the chief purpose of religion is not to serve public life. Here we discover a necessary paradox. Religion that is captive to public life is of little public use. Indeed, such captivity produces politicized religion and religionized politics, and the result, as we know from bitter historical experience, is tragedy for both religion an public life.

Religion best serves public life by relativizing the importance of public life, especially of public life understood as politics. Authentic religion keeps the political enterprise humble by reminding it that it is not the first thing. By directing us to the ultimate, religion defines the limits of the penultimate. By illumining our highest purpose, all lesser purposes are brought under transcendent judgement.

While the author of the editorial is not given, I'd assume it was a joint effort of the magazine's founding editors, Richard John Neuhaus and James Nuechterlein.

The remainder of the issue contains "Snapshots" from selected articles published over the years, from over 200 authors. The Snapshots are punctuated by seven articles which are republished in full.

Finally, since I have an affinity for Joseph Pearce, having heard him speak at a couple of Chesterton Conferences, I generally read anything published about him. In this issue of First Things, there is a one page ad for Joseph Pearce's two recent books on Shakespeare: The Quest for Shakespeare and Through Shakespeare's Eyes. The ad was placed by Ignatius Press. All the comments are quite laudatory. As I continued to read the Snapshots, I came upon one taken from the August/September 2008 issue. In an article entitled Thy Canonized Bones by Robert Miola. The article was his review of The Quest for Shakespeare. Here's what Professor Miola had to say about the book: "Unfortunately, The Quest for Shakespeare proves to be a patchwork of other people's work indiscriminately selected, hastily stitched together, and served up with self-congratulatory fanfare. Seldom has such a slight book managed to combine ignorance and arrogance on such a grand scale." I've not read either of the books, so I don't know what to think of the reviewer's comments. However, I love the way he expressed himself. What a sentence: "Seldom has such a slight book managed to combine ignorance and arrogance on such a grand scale." I'll have to keep my eye out for other books that that sentence could be applied to, with attribution, of course.

Absolute Truth, Again

I keep looking for ways to explain absolute truth. See, if you can't convince someone that there is such a thing as Absolute Truth, then everything is relative and there's no way to have an argument. Here I mean argument in a philosophical sense. According to The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: "In philosophy, “arguments” are those statements a person makes in the attempt to convince someone of something, or present reasons for accepting a given conclusion." It doesn't mean quarrel. As G.K. Chesterton said: "Never let a quarrel get in the way of a good argument."

Interesting Video on "The Spending Freeze"