A hopeful universalism
God's "consuming fire" is the fire of holy love. It doesn't await sinners in the future; it burns up sin itself.
Since childhood, I've been uncomfortable with the idea that accepting Jesus is an automatic ticket to heaven—and with the reverse idea.
First the bishops sought an expanded exemption. Now they claim the contraception mandate itself violates religious liberty. It doesn't.
The 1939 World's Fair's vision was whipped to a froth through wishful thinking. Church leaders should probe the future with more humility.
I am confident that the new creation will include animals. I hope that it will include Merle, my deceased smooth-coat collie.
The World’s Christians, by Douglas Jacobsen
The term world Christianity has been widely used since the publication of Philip Jenkins’s 2002 best seller The Next Christendom, but in popular usage it has tended to refer only to Christianity in the Global South. Though courses on world Christianity have proliferated, no one until Douglas Jacobsen has taken the care to delineate the contours of the entire global movement.
The Better Angels of Our Nature, by Steven Pinker
Steven Pinker says human beings are becoming less violent. But his larger point seems to be that everyone should think like he does.
Apocalyptic visions
Elaine Pagels's book repeats a winning formula: contrast the canon's controversial parts with more appealing Gnostic selections.
Saint Sinatra and Other Poems, by Angela Alaimo O’Donnell
Angela O'Donnell's sassy poems are born of her deeply Catholic imagination. She builds a house of saints, canonized or not.
Marvel’s The Avengers
Writer-director Joss Whedon, the creator of the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, saves the world from destruction yet again in the first of the summer blockbusters, Marvel’s The Avengers. The adventure is moderately enjoyable but rather exhausting.
Dark Shadows
Dark Shadows, Tim Burton’s film of the popular camp-gothic soap opera from the ’60s and early ’70s, is silly and over the top. But it has a marvelous, billowing look, and it’s quite entertaining.