Dogma and tradition
Dogma and tradition are … like the universal knowledge among athletes of what it takes to become truly fit.
Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick, Orthodoxy & Heterodoxy
Latest things and lasting things
My abandonment of charismatic Christianity and move towards received tradition led me, over time, to Orthodox Christianity. It was a renunciation of the “latest thing” in order to embrace the faith “once and for all delivered to the saints.” It was a movement from charismatic excitement towards sacramental stability. When people are young, there can be an excitement that surrounds dating, moving from relationship to relationship, dreaming of possibilities and riding the wave of romantic energy. That is a far cry from the daily life of a stable marriage extending through the years, giving birth and nurture to generations of children. Christianity, in its traditional form, is like marriage, not dating.
The most institutionalized element of Orthodox Christianity can be found in its worship. We have documents describing, in some detail, the structure of worship from as early as the 2nd century. It is worth noting that the word “Orthodoxy” is perhaps best translated as “right glory [worship]” rather than right opinion or doctrine. What the Church teaches is primarily found embodied in its worship. An old Latin formula has it: Lex orandi, lex credendi. It means, “The law of praying is the law of believing.” It explains how it is that Orthodoxy’s primary word of evangelism is “Come and see.”
Lab-leak theory redux
Yes, the press too readily dismissed the "lab leak" theory of Covid-19. And yes, they probably dismissed it mostly, if indirectly, because Donald Trump floated it. I pawed that over a bit in my last posting.
But I’ve had a thought that mitigates their fault: Donald Trump is a master of (as his sometimes-buddy Steve Bannon put it) "flooding the zone with shit." Is it any wonder that people started reacting by assuming that whatever he says is shit? Granted, I’m not a journalist, but I know I started reflexively assuming that.
Sully’s shorts
- “Stanford eliminated the SAT before eliminating legacy admissions. Tells you all you need to know,” – Rob Henderson, a foster kid saved by a standardized test. Three cheers for Colorado this week for banning legacy preferences.
- “If you’re not evolving into an anti-racist educator, you’re making yourself obsolete. … it’s going to lead to being fired, because you’ll be doing damage to our children. Trauma. And so as we fire the teachers who sexually abuse our children, we will be firing the teachers who do racist things to our children and traumatize them,” – an 8th grade Portland teacher on a Zoom call with a dozen other teachers nodding along.
- [Responding to a scathing criticism of the New York Pride parade for excluding uniformed LGBT police officers]: Such a gross article, you’ve finally gotten me to unsubscribe. Conflating bigotry against gay people (something you are) with disallowing police (a job you choose to do) is incredibly disingenuous. Police in America are by and large wicked, either personally, like Chauvin, or simply uncaring enough to join a profession that upholds countless evil policies, in New York City and beyond, that historically have abused gay, trans, and racial minorities. A self-loathing gay cop throwing a black youth on the ground during an unconstitutional “stop and frisk” — yeah, that’s the America we want. Cops whine about being hated? They can get a new job.
I don’t want cops to exist in their current form in America, and I certainly don’t want them pretending they care about Pride, which abhors a bully. I, a white man, would personally feel unsafe marching near American police or interacting with them in any way. It is not bigotry to say so, it’s common sense. You were wrong on Iraq, wrong on race, and continue to be wrong on this.
All via Andrew Sullivan
Purdue beats IU again …
Indiana University: vaccination is mandatory for Fall 2021. (Resentment, lawsuits.)
Purdue University: fully vaccinated students will be entered in a lottery for 10 full-tuition one-year scholarships.
Former Governor Mitch Daniels is a smart university President.
… while Rutgers forfeits its cojones
On Wednesday, Rutgers University sent out an email condemning the rise in antisemitic attacks across the country. The very next day, following protests from Students for Justice in Palestine, the school apologized for condemning antisemitism. I wish I was kidding.
Making culture wars sound kinda fun
The pandemic is easing toward an end, the sort of good luck it is bad luck to talk about, so forget what I said. The country is divided, but when was it otherwise? We don’t get many Montanans or Dakotans visiting us in Manhattan. We had relatives who disappeared down South and joined a church that is opposed to literacy and people speak in tongues and it’s hard for us to understand them. It’s too big a country to be united, so we have a loose confederation of nations, vegan nation coming into prominence as the gardens ripen, and earbud nation, which doesn’t engage in conversation at all, and the nation of the progressive conquistadorista Ocasio-Cortez that seeks to make us ride bikes and be reeducated and write pronouns on our foreheads. These deep divisions will fade with time and be succeeded by others.
You can read most of my more impromptu stuff at here. It should work in your RSS aggregator, like Feedly, should you want to make a habit of it.
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Tipsy Teetotaler ن 