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2017-03-09T16:53:45-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Seven Books That Changed My Life: 7QT V Seriatim

Last updated on: March 9, 2017 at 4:53 pm By Scott Eric Alt

The French novelist Jean Malaquais once said, “The only time I know something is true is the moment I discover it in the act of writing.” As it happens, Malaquais was a Communist; which makes me question the truth of the observation. I don’t know whether the statement becomes any more or less accurate if I change it this way: “The only time I know something is true is the moment I discover it in the act of reading.” I like the thought, even if the truth may be less than pristine. I suspect — or at least I hope very earnestly — that there will be libraries in heaven, where the truth will never be in question. Until then, I often like to think of a different, and still wondrous, category of books; and the only difficulty, for the sake of this particular post, was in narrowing them to seven. [Read more] Read more

Books & Writing &c.

Seven Quick Takes

2017-03-09T16:57:44-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Pope Francis Derangement Syndrome Vol. II

Last updated on: March 9, 2017 at 4:57 pm By Scott Eric Alt

On October 13, Bernard Fellay gave a homily in which he insisted that he's Catholic. It was meandering and schizophrenic, and I have not yet decided what was worst about it. It may have been the many occasions Fellay took to display his own brand of Pope Francis Derangement Syndrome (and Vatican II Derangement Syndrome ). Or it may have been a more general evil; namely, that his sect appropriates the name of Pius X to exercise its schism from the Catholic Church. Read more

Pope Francis Derangement Syndrome

SSPX

2017-03-09T16:59:43-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

A Fulcrum and a Lever: Chiefly on Eucharistic Adoration: 7QT IV Seriatim

Last updated on: March 9, 2017 at 4:59 pm By Scott Eric Alt

I can tell that it has been some time since I've been to Adoration. The reason I know this is because I am tired. I have lacked patience, which normally is one of my rare---exceedingly rare---virtues. I am out of temperament, and morose. As water seeks its own level, so my less frequent visits to the adoration chapel can be gauged by my more frequent visits to the confessional. I can tell that I have not been to Adoration because even the word "water" sounds dry. Read more

Eucharistic Adoration

Seven Quick Takes

2017-03-09T17:01:01-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Church Is a Communion of Disciples in Mission

Last updated on: March 9, 2017 at 5:01 pm By Scott Eric Alt

In March, the Huffington Post described it as “Catholicism 2.0,” but listen to George Weigel talk about it and you will know that Evangelical Catholicism represents Catholicism 5.0. Two thousand years is much longer than many like to think, and the demands of history are always changing, and Catholicism has rethought itself—not its doctrines, but the way they are lived—many times before. I had the privilege of hearing Mr. Weigel speak on this last night. Read more

New Evangelization

2017-03-09T17:02:04-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Best Writing Advice I Ever Got & Other Quick Takes: 7QT III Seriatim

Last updated on: March 9, 2017 at 5:02 pm By Scott Eric Alt

When I was a graduate student, I made a conscious effort to try not to write in an academic style. My first year, I had used all the proper jargon, and all the expected academic logjam of syntax (snooze yawn zzzzz), and only ended up hating everything that I had written. When Sir Walter Scott wrote about Dr. Dryasdust, he knew whereof he spoke. I didn’t want to be Dr. Dryasdust. So I said to myself, “Why are you doing this? Why not write about literature as though you actually do love it and think it matters and ought to be read?” (I remember Joseph Heller’s wonderful line in Catch-22: “He knew everything there was to know about literature except how to enjoy it.”) Only one professor understood what I was up to. Everyone else told me I was being overly-subjective. [Read more] Read more

About Me

Books & Writing &c.

Seven Quick Takes

2017-03-09T17:08:53-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Lies and the Lying Liars Who Accuse Others of Them

Last updated on: March 9, 2017 at 5:08 pm By Scott Eric Alt

I have next to me a copy of the American Heritage Dictionary. I looked at this valuable resource, to see whether Dr. Caner has been playing fast-and-loose with the word “debate.” And what I discovered was that the definition supplied by he & Dr. Geisler is lo! the very same as definition #2. To debate is “to discuss opposing points.” In fact, he who consults the AHD will have to continue all the way to the very last definition to find Mr. X’s singular understanding of the word. Read more

Answers for Calvinists

Debates

2017-03-09T17:10:06-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Apologist’s Anathema Against Twitter & Other Quick Takes: 7QT II Seriatim

Last updated on: March 9, 2017 at 5:10 pm By Scott Eric Alt

"The medium is the message,” Marshall McLuhan said. The message that comes across on Twitter is that you can do thought in 150 characters. But you can’t. You can trade barbs; you can practice one-liners; you can try to be quick-witted with the riposte. But at bottom, Twitter feeds our hunger to think in sound bites, and sound bites feed our hunger not to have to think at all. Sometimes you need a long paragraph ; sometimes you need fifty pages to develop an idea. Read more

Books & Writing &c.

Seven Quick Takes

Social Media

2017-03-09T17:12:15-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Dear World, Let This Dead Baby in a Bag and Her Teen Mother Be a Lesson to You

Last updated on: March 9, 2017 at 5:12 pm By Scott Eric Alt

I am writing this in a white heat, and I do not intend to change much, and that is so far from my normal practice that I am surprised that I am permitting myself at all. But if the writing remains raw, then it remains raw. This needs to be said. And this needs to be said over and over and over, and not let go, until this awful and numb and pagan world we live in returns to some semblance of sanity; even if it has to be shouted and beaten back into it, which may be the only thing that will work, because shock isn’t working for us. If this story shocks you, world, too bad. I don’t have sympathy. I don’t want to hear it. Stop sitting on your butt and being shocked for two days. [Read more] Read more

Abortion

In the News

2017-03-09T17:13:28-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Forgive Me Father, For I Smashed a Brick Against My Face

Last updated on: March 9, 2017 at 5:13 pm By Scott Eric Alt

For all this year I could not go an hour without wanting to smash a brick against my face. Now, when you smash a brick against your face, there are two things that could happen next. You could say, “That was a bloody stupid thing to do. Let me get myself to the hospital. I’m not going to try that again.” Or you could say, “That felt good. Let me do that again.” And so you keep smashing bricks against your face until you are a wretched disfigurement, but you have to keep smashing them more and more frequently, because at least that way you can remind yourself that you feel something. And what that leads to is the state of mind that says, “Oh, I can’t take any antiseptic right now, that would hurt.” [Read more] Read more

Answers for Calvinists

Confession

2018-03-04T14:00:29-04:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I Hate Fads, So How Can I Get In On This One? And Other Quick Takes: 7QT I Seriatim

Last updated on: March 4, 2018 at 2:00 pm By Scott Eric Alt

So I see this Seven Quick Takes fad everywhere I go in the Catholic blogosphere, and I think to myself, I hate fads. How can I get in on this one? I decided, sensibly enough, that the best way to get in was to, well, get in. So here I am: with words about viral blog posts, Mystic Monk Coffee, Thomas Peters, St. Augustine's City of God, Job, and the Dark Night of the Soul. Seven Quick Takes is still, as always, hosted by the graceful Jennifer Fulwiler at the peerless Conversion Diary. I would be henceforth unmentionable by civilized man if I didn’t point out that Ms. Fulwiler’s writing factored greatly in my conversion, for she has an uncanny ability to make the Church come across as what it, in fact, is: joyful. [Read more] Read more

Seven Quick Takes

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