Italian atheist, Piergiorgio Odifreddi, in 2011 wrote a book entitled Dear Pope, I’m Writing to You., critiquing Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI’s theological writing back as far as 1967’s Introduction to Christianity. One of his objections was that, in Benedict’s summary, he “consider[ed] the conception of the primordial and creative Reason as a Person with its own “I” to be an anthropomorphism.”
Benedict responded to the whole book in a long letter, newly translated to English, addressing the anthropomorphism objection in part as follows:
However, these enlightened persons run the risk of taking their own philosophical conceptions of God as adequate and of forgetting that their own philosophical ideas are also infinitely far from the reality of the “totally Other.” Thus these anthropomorphisms are needed in order to overcome the arrogance of thought; indeed, it must be said that, in some respects, anthropomorphism more closely approaches the reality of God than mere concepts. Moreover, what the Fourth Lateran Council said in 1215 still applies, i.e. that every concept of God can only be analogical and that dissimilarity with the true God is always infinitely greater than likeness.
(Benedict XVI; H/T Rod Dreher)
Olbermann’s combination of liberal anger and smug self-righteousness gave MSBBC an identity as the network for liberal self-congratulation. That didn’t mean news and analysis produced by mostly liberal journalists who were trying, even with all their biases, to tell the story straight (most of the time). The old networks and CNN were already doing that. MSNBC found a business model appealing to that sliver of the left that wanted to spend its evenings being told how today’s conservative was the “worst person in the world”.
I’m told that Olbermann is gone (I probably already had read that but didn’t much care). But Chris Matthews remains as
a character. That character (like a lot of pro wrestling characters) contains elements of the real Chris Matthews. He probably does admire Obama’s oratory and probably does get frustrated with some Republican rhetoric. He has just exaggerated those characteristics to a cartoonish degree and chosen to ignore what he knows about how both sides play procedural hardball and use tough language. This allowed him to fit into the new MSNBC. His Obama worship and his venom directed toward the president’s opponents was giving the viewers what they wanted.
I hope honest liberals are as embarrassed at MSNBC as honest conservatives are at Fox.
A few years back, Bill Hybels of fabled megachurch Willow Creed did a dangerous thing, for which I actually, no sarcasm or irony intended, admire him. He undertook to assess how his Church was doing building disciples of Jesus Christ and found that it was doing pretty poorly. (That, of course, produced a book.)
Now we have, according to William E. Simon, Jr., the emergence of Roman Catholic megaparishes.
The cause here may be necessity rather than evangelism. Simon mentions a number of the pressures, and the pressures mostly involve numbers: more Catholics, fewer priests. But can a liturgical megachurch avoid becoming either a sacrament factory or a crypto-Protestant community center?
My Orthodox parish is building. We’re building for 180 worshippers routinely, who knows how many for Easter and Christmas? I really think that’s about the maximum a Priest can know, hear confessions and give guidance to. When we outgrow it, we’ll help start another Parish somewhere else in the county.
But then, we always were different.
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“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)
Tipsy Teetotaler ن 