Hard Apologetics, Soft Apologetics

By George Sumner This reflection is really meant as advice for the Episcopal Church. It may make it more likely that I can be heard if I make it clear, here at the outset, that my idea is equally applicable ... Read More...

The Scarlet Thread and the Holy Cross

By Thomas Kincaid “And men, when you get in there, remember to look for the scarlet thread.” The promised fall of Jericho had been a long time coming for Israel’s army. There had been the promise, then the spies, then the mobilization, then the encampment. A... Read More...

God’s Hiddenness and a Miscarriage

By Tyler Been Two days after Easter, my wife and I found out that our expected child was dead. She should have been twelve weeks along in the womb, but she measured at eight weeks, and there was no heartbeat... Read More...

The Blood and the Name

By Timothy P. O’Malley On the eighth day after his birth, before receiving the “name above all names” (Phil. 2:9), Jesus was circumcised. The temptation is to spiritualize this first shedding of blood by ... Read More...

Justice, Mercy and The Irishman

The world of The Irishman is a deeply moral one, with a strong sense of retribution and justice, but without much hope of reconciliation or redemption for its central characters.

Jim Thompson and the Killer Inside Us All

We prefer to think that evil is something “bad people” do, and that these bad people are easily recognizable. We see a mug shot on the news and say “Oh, he looks like a child molester, like a mass shooter, like a serial killer, like a bad person. Or as often as not today we think of evil as that perpetrated only by our political opposites. We describe such people as “inhuman” or “deplorable”, descriptors that gives us the relief of distance. The guise evil wears is, of course, always that of someone else.