Obama and Niebuhr

My piece on Obama and Niebuhr has been published in the Toronto Star, June 14.

On Teaching in the University

Here is a moderately interesting article by Nicholas Guilhot with links to more arresting reflections on teaching in higher education, a common pre-occupation of mine. And toward the end, a good quote:

"in most countries where a primarily public higher education system is being restructured according to these principles, students don’t want more loans that will be used to pay for expensive Masters selling mostly a brand name and to mortgage an already uncertain future income. They usually want more teachers who have more time to engage with them, and extended library hours rather than a more expensive version of Courseworks or WebCT. As for those of us who believe that teaching should remain primarily a meaningful and enriching form of socialization, we should ask ourselves what we can do to meet their demands and to avoid becoming the tamed simians of the Taylorized academic factory."

By analogy...

See this lampooning of creationist / ID thought... or is his tongue in his cheek? Oh boy.

Obamacons

Obama conservatives? Yes, apparently. Andrew Sullivan is calling them Obamacons. The TNR is on it here. First Things has weighed in last week with a piece by Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput, which "encourages" pro-life Obama supporters. "Encourages", as in : goooooooooooood luck!

R.R. Reno on Traditional Marriage

Citing Doug Farrow's latest book, here is R.R. Reno's brief yet articulate defense of traditional marriage. However, I see problems with the reference to the blanket castigation the left's embrace of the state. Thinking only, for the moment, of important social teachings of various religious traditions, the Catholic Church included, it appears that the defense of traditional marriage is going to need further nuancing when it comes to the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate claims of the state in order for this defense to be credible. This would be my twist on it - again, a kind of left conservatism. Embracing traditional marriage while at the same time seeing plenty of room for the state as a central actor to promote or restore justice and equity as in the social democratic political tradition. This tradition is an excellent example of a politics of true toleration - a central role for the state practiced by various European governments for decades which did not - in the main - interfere in family life.

My piece in the Montreal Gazette

Here is a piece I wrote in response to a story in the April 13 Gazette (Montreal) on the local Catholic archdiocese's public fundraising campaign, which is designed to stave off parish closures and similar signs of decline in Catholic life in Montreal.

The Best Blog piece of 2008 so far

It comes from Edward Oakes, which does not surprise. Here is a brilliant analysis of the new atheism that goes somewhat further than the many critiques I've read. His leading idea is that by ignoring the 'predictions' of Nietzsche regarding certain inevitable consequences of atheist belief, the new atheists are engaging in a rhetoric, the thrust of which is a resort to violence. Read on...

James Smith's take on Lilla's book, Stillborn God

It's worthwhile for its elegance alone.

Get Religion on Time's Un-philosophical Anthropology

It's here

Blair becoming Catholic: You saw it here...second

From the Daily Telegraph comes news that Tony Blair will become Catholic within the next few weeks. Would it be too much to ask London Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor (or whomever receives him into the Church officially) to go over a few basic items such as the need to defend innocent life, the serious moral criteria required in an assessment to go to war, not to mention a few other things that the Blair government so glibly overlooked between 1997 and 2007? Just asking.

Dégénération: Shockwaves follow an apparently popular musical confrontation with cultural liberalism

Here is the wildly popular song Dégénération', by Mes Aïeux, a Quebecois troupe. Like no other cultural event in recent memory, it signals a turn away from the standard social and political liberalism in Quebec.

Criticizing Dershowitz (being careful not to get sued)

A fine example of a journalist doing the job that somehow many expect only of ivory tower academics or ethicists. Three cheers for... analysis in the press (albeit in the already highbrow FT)!

Alister McGrath & Christopher Hitchens in Debate

At Georgetown University.

The Scent of Scandal Hangs over Richard Dawkins

HT: Holy Smoke, Daily telegraph, UK.
This is what happens when your rhetoric gets ahead of your mind - as a matter of bad habit.

Catching on to Affluenza

This new book by Oliver James, titled Affluenza, was reviewed in the TLS recently. Here is a review of it from the Guardian last winter. The book argues apparently that selfish capitalism is ruining us. It's so bad that it behaves like a virus that kills us from within. James seems to have condensed much of what Naomi Klein and other leftist thinkers have been saying, only in a more socially and psychologically informed way. The one negaitive reaction to this book I see comes from a reviewer whose claim to fame is a book titled Rich is Beautiful. No moral ambiguity there.

Pity though - on the basis of three reviews quickly scanned, no substantive religious or theological diagnosis of what's happened since the sixteenth century is forthcoming (which James apparently describes as western societies' increasing level of unhappiness since that century specifically!). Guess that work will have to be carried by others...