Un-Worthy: English Cleric Accuses Disney of Corrupting the Youth

Christopher Jamison, the Abbot of Worth in West Sussex, has accused Disney of “exploiting spirituality” to sell its products and corrupting youth. Even worst, he says that Disneyland is now a modern day pilgrimage site. Cick here for rest of story.

Today is the last official day of the Hurricane season and the first day of Advent.

Get it?

Today’s Quote 11/30/08

The Church is not in the world; the world is in the church as the setting is in the play. God made the universe in order to make saints. The universe is God’s saint-making machine, and the Church is its product.  -  Peter Kreeft, Jesus Shock, p.15

OMG: The Vatican Warns that Text-Messaging and Cell Phones May Be Hazardous to Your Ever-Lasting Soul

Click here. I guess we just never get it right!!!!

Today’s Quote 11/29/08

“What we have lost God will restore – That, and Himself, forevermore.” – John Piper

100 Notable Books

A list from the New York Times. Just in case you have a lot of time on your hands.

Satan, let me in!

GK Chesterton once wrote this little parable:

“A man who was entirely carelss of spiritual affairs died and went to hell. And he was much missed on earth by his old friends. His business agent went down to the gates of hell to see if there was any chance of bringing him back. But though he pleaded for the gates to be opened, the iron bars never yielded. His priest also went and argued: ‘He was not really a bad fellow, given time he would have matured. Let him out, please!’ The gates remained stubbornly shut against all their voices. Finally, his mother came; she did not beg for his release. Quietly, and with a strange catch in her voice, she said to Satan: ‘Let me in.’ Immediately the great door swung open upon their hinges. For love goes down through the gates of hell and there redeems the dead.”

Quoted from The Holy Longing by Ronald Rolheiser, p, 90. Out of Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man.

At least at Thanksgiving I didn’t have to do this

Click here.

Quote

Many people want to go to heaven the way they want to go to Florida – they think the weather will be an improvement and the people decent.      Eugene Peterson, Reversed Thunder, p. 174

Sex and DivorceCare

Anybody who knows me knows how much I love facilitating DC. I have been around it so long that I can “feel” how it works and where it “grates.” I think one of the areas in which it grates is its view of sex outside of marriage. By the time the “experts” finish describing sexual intimacy, you would think it is the front door to the Trinity. I am very uncomfortable putting sex that high up the ontology ladder. Of course, if it’s true, it’s true. But if it isn’t, the people in DC feel so crummy anyway that highlighting the “sex is holy” theme ad infinitum kills the spirit. State the case, give a couple of illustrations, then move on.

I think one of the hardet things I do in counseling is get people not to overreact to their marriage partner’s sex outside marriage. Yes, wrong. Yes, very wrong. Yes, very, very wrong. But if you ratchet that thing up too high, the possibilities of restoration become almost nil. The Bible states its case and moves on. We should, too.

This is one area where I am definitely in the minority. We Protestants need to leave marriage as sacramental with the RCs, who unfortunately are using it to kill the souls of too many people.