Talking about the "things that matter most" on Oct. 5
4:00 – Kresta Comments
4:20 – When Athens Met Jerusalem
Christian theology shaped and is shaping many places in the world, but it was the Greeks who originally gave a philosophic language to Christianity. John Mark Reynolds's book When Athens Met Jerusalem provides students a well-informed introduction to the intellectual underpinnings (Greek, Roman and Christian) of Western civilization and highlights how certain current intellectual trends are now eroding those very foundations. This work makes a powerful contribution to the ongoing faith versus reason debate, showing that these two dimensions of human knowing are not diametrically opposed, but work together under the direction of revelation.
5:00 – Direct to my Desk
Re: The 4:00 Kresta Comments -- Resentment
ReplyDeleteAl looks to the model of Jesus to avoid bitterness and resentment. He cites 1 Peter: "And Jesus, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; he committed himself to the one who judges righteously." He also cites Ephesians: "St. Paul says, 'Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but only that which is good to the use of building one another up in the faith. ... Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another even as God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you.' "
Later Al sums it up: "So it's Jesus, in his teaching about mercy, Jesus in his behavior before his accusers, that we find a model. Blessed are the merciful, for you shall obtain mercy -- you shall be shown mercy. And then flowing from that we are given a few other practical instructions. And that has to do with shuttin' your yap. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, except that which is good to building others up. Stop saying negative things. Put aside bitterness and wrath and malice and anger. Just put it aside."
Well, I for one do not want Al to shut his yap. Al was right to say negative things about Archbishop Rembert Weakland, Michael Moore, Roman Polanski, Debra Winger, Woody Allen, Whoopi Goldberg, Otto Weisser, Richard Cohen, Tom O'Neil, Harvey Weinstein, Anne Applebaum, Father John Jenkins, Dan Brown, Jerrold Nadler, Charlotte Shultz, Dianne Feinstein, Kathleen Sebelius, Ted Kennedy, Barack Obama, Keith Olbermann, John Conyers, Frank Schaeffer, Nancy Pelosi, Park Chan-wook, Stephen Whitty, A.O. Scott, V.A. Musetto, Thomas Malthus, Walter Cronkite, Michael Jackson, Joe Jackson, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Doug Kmiec, Sonia Sotomayor, virtually all Supreme Court nominees, Penn Jillette, Chris Matthews, Father Marcial Maciel, and Christopher Hitchens.
Al was right to say negative things about the National Endowment for the Arts, Freemasonry, Islam, the EEOC, ACORN, the Hemlock Society, Yale University Press, Iran, PBS, PETA, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Department of Defense, the Federal Protective Service, Vanity Fair, and YouTube.
Al was right to say negative things about secularism, liberalism, postmodernism, cynicism, materialism, and atheism.
Three cheers for scrutiny and accountability.