thoughts in and out of season
James Kalb Notes from the religion beat of the newspapers of the New York Times Company:
Multiculturalism takes off! Hospital seeks Klingon interpreter.
On a whim, I stuck “dream of a church” into Google. What came up, it seemed to me, was rah-rah stuff from people who want the community spirit of the church to substitute for God. It’s a kind of bootstraps approach to religion that doesn’t make much sense, because the whole point of religion … More ...
The conservative liberalism of Stanley Kurtz accepts the liberal view that the good of the individual is the ability to do as he chooses. It nonetheless recognizes the need for traditional moral restraints to moderate the pursuit of self-interest, and in particular to promote the network of habits and mutual obligations that constitutes family life. … More ...
The British government wants to give a man who shot a burglar a longer stay in jail because he poses a threat to the public—that part of the public that happens to be engaged in burglary. Government lawyers say burglars ‘need protection’. So as to the government, a burglar is someone who can be … More ...
Another column by Stanley Kurtz lays out in more detail the conservative liberalism that I noted a few days ago. In That Other War: Where the moral debates are, post-Bennett-gate, he proposes that “we are living in a moral universe consisting of three broad groups: religious traditionalists, social liberals, and a balancing and relatively … More ...
Looking back on protestantism, the thing that strikes me most is its collective nothingness. There are admirable individual believers and small groups, but in the absence of a principle of concrete authority larger groups become utterly mindless. There’s really nothing there. For evidence, consider the newsclips from the mainline protestant denominations at The Institute on … More ...
A worthwhile summmary from Canada of the problems with “gay marriage”: Culture wars are killing marriage.
The single most important question in the current debate over homosexuality is whether it’s good for those sexually attracted to persons of the same sex to follow through on their inclinations. If it is, then it’s a violation of their rights to stand in their way or act as if there’s something wrong with what … More ...
Opponents of the new transnational order have taken heart from its inevitable gross corruption. The UN, the EU, the Clinton White House and similar institutions reject all reliable principles of human loyalty. As a result, officials don’t have any reason to sacrifice their own interests to the public good, and projects of social reconstruction suffer—or … More ...