Author: John W Gillis

Media & Culture

A Masters in Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da?

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So, a Canadian woman, Mary-Lu Zahalan-Kennedy, has earned the world’s first graduate degree in Beatles music. Is there any possibility left that the worldwide university system retains so much as a shred of its former dignity and gravitas – or relevance? Mike Brocken, founder and leader of the Beatles MA at Liverpool Hope University, said the postgraduate degree makes Zahalan-Kennedy a member of a select group of popular music experts. "Mary-Lu now joins an internationally recognized group of scholars of Popular Music Studies who are able to offer f...

Scripture

The USCCB Swings & Whiffs on the NAB Revised Edition

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The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has announced the release on this coming Ash Wednesday (March 9th) of what amounts to the completion of a Revised version of the New American Bible, which will be known as the New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE). I should be happy to see the publication of what is being touted as a more formal translation of the Old Testament for the NAB, but I can’t help but feel that the USCCB has bungled this. This will be the fourth release of the NAB family of translations. The original translation was ...

Politics & Economics

We can try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody to buy a house

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Quote of the Day for Tuesday, February 1st, 2011: I’m not sure quite how to attribute this… I’m quoting Joe Carter over at the First Thoughts blog today, who is quoting Judge Roger Vinson’s ruling published Monday striking down the ObamaCare law on account of the individual mandate, which is quoting then-candidate Barack Obama from 2008, who is essentially mocking the notion of a mandate… You can figure it out: Priceless. But if there remained any doubts, we surely know now why Senator Obama was so well-known for voting “present” during his l...

Life in Christ

Christ reigns by unfolding Himself in men

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Quote of the Day for Monday, January 31st, 2011: A. G. Sertillanges, from his venerable book The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods: Christianized humanity is made up of various personalities, no one of which can refuse to function without impoverishing the group and without depriving the eternal Christ of a part of his Kingdom. Christ reigns by unfolding Himself in men. Every life of one of His members is a characteristic moment of His duration; every individual man and Christian is an instance, incommunicable, unique, and therefore nece...

Bible Study Tools

Updated WORDsearch Tweaks

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From the better-late-than-never department, I’ve updated my Overview of WORDsearch Bible Study software to account for version 9. I’ve also updated the customizations under the Tweaks tab: more color schemes, more Internet dictionary resources, and a minor re-work of my Bible Search Range Defaults file that works better with the new indexer engine in WS9. This can all be found here.

Life in Christ

We have children because love overflows

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Quote of the Day for Sunday, January 30th, 2011: Timothy Dalrymple, writing at Patheos.com, on Why We Have Children: At the thought of fathering a daughter, waves of joy rolled through me. I loved my little girl long before I met her. I read her stories in the womb, sang to her, prayed for her. It wouldn’t matter what she looked like or what her personality was. She was mine—mine to nurture and protect, mine to train and guide, and mine to love with all my might. We have children because love overflows. I believe as a Christian that I am created in...

Critical Issues

Privatizing Prisons?

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Jazz Shaw has a troubling post on the blog over at HotAir.com, dealing with a recent suggestion from Pennsylvania Auditor General Jack Wagner to freeze new prison construction funding in PA. As the Entitlements Chicken comes home to roost, states are likely to begin looking at their corrections systems for ways to save. Nothing wrong with that in theory, but I have a hard time seeing how the typical alignment of political squabbling will produce a good path forward. To wit, Shaw’s two-cent’s worth on available options: Wagner is excluding the ranks of mu...

Culture & Philosophy

Modernity is simply the time of realized nihilism

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Quote of the Day for Friday, January 28th, 2011: David Bentley Hart, from the just released February 2011 volume of First Things, discussing Martin Heidegger’s reading of the centrality of nihilism in Western civilization’s cultural history and its philosophical tradition, in an article that appears to be available to non-subscribers on the website: Modernity, for Heidegger, is simply the time of realized nihilism, the age in which the will to power has become the ground of all our values; as a consequence it is all but impossible for humanity to dwell i...

Politics & Economics

An attack on the poor, who have been most helped by capitalism

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Quote of the Day for Thursday, January 27th, 2011: Robert T. Miller, in February’s First Things, criticizing the continuing latent Marxism in the political economy of Alasdair MacIntyre’s thought, in an article entitled Waiting for St. Vladimir: Capitalism efficiently delivers goods and services, but it is not a perfect system—far from it. To be sure, capitalism has costs of various kinds. It is a key insight of modern economics, however, that all solutions to a given problem have costs, and we delude ourselves if we think we can find a perfect (in the s...

Critical Issues

People cannot claim a right to kill you simply because they will not recognize you as a person

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Quote of the Day for Wednesday, January 26th, 2011: Joe Carter, writing an “On the Square” column over at FirstThings.com, on Being a Person: But should all human beings be considered persons? Historically, the answer has been a resounding “no.” Slaves, women, infants, Jews, and “foreigners” all share a common history of being denied legal or moral standing as persons, despite being recognized as humans. The judgment of recent generations, however, has without exception concluded that denying personhood to these members of the human family is a great mor...