C.S. Lewis on Political Sermons

"Most political sermons teach the congregation nothing except what newspapers are taken at the rectory." -- C.S. Lewis (From Christian Apologetics)

Lewis was a realist when it came to politics. He wrote, "Theology teaches us what ends are desirable and what ends are lawful, while Politics teaches us what means are effective. Thus Theology tells us that every man ought to have a decent wage. Politics tells us by what means this is likely to be attained." (God in the Dock, p. 92)

Quote of the Week - Dorothy L. Sayers

“The thing I am here to say to you is this: that it is worse than useless for Christians to talk about the importance of Christian morality, unless they are prepared to take their stand upon the fundamentals of Christian theology. It is a lie to say that dogma does not matter; it matters enormously. It is fatal to let people suppose that Christianity is only a mode of feeling; it is vitally necessary to insist that it is first and foremost a rational explanation of the universe. It is hopeless to offer Christianity as a vaguely idealistic aspiration of a simple and consoling kind; it is, on the contrary, a hard, tough, exacting, and complex doctrine, steeped in a drastic and uncompromising realism. And it is fatal to imagine that everyone knows quite well what Christianity is and needs only a little encouragement to practice it. The brutal fact is that in this Christian country not one person in a hundred has the faintest notion what the Church teaches about God or man or society or the person of Jesus Christ.”

Dorothy L. Sayers Creed or Chaos? Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute Press, 1995 [1949], pp. 31-32

Quote of the Week: John Lennox

“In China we can criticize Darwin, but not the government; in America you can criticize the government, but not Darwin.” ― John C. Lennox, God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?

Bioethicists and Death Control

"Thousands of medical ethicists and bioethicists, as they are called, professionally guide the unthinkable on its passage through the debatable on its way to becoming the justifiable until it is finally established as the unexceptionable."—Richard John Neuhaus

Wesley J. Smith

If you want to see what is likely to go awry in medical ethics and public healthcare policy, pay attention to the advocacy of bioethicists—at least of those who don’t identify themselves as “conservative” or “Catholic.” In their many journal articles and presentations at academic symposia, they unabashedly advocate for discarding the sanctity- and equality-of-life ethic as our moral cornerstone. Instead, most favor invidious and systemic medical discrimination predicated on a patient’s “quality of life,” which would endow the young, healthy, and able-bodied with the highest moral value—and, hence, with the greatest claim to medical resources.

Thanks to the work of bioethics, life-taking policies that a few decades ago were “unthinkable” now are unremarkable. Withholding tube-supplied food and water from the cognitively disabled until they die—Terri Schiavo’s fate—is now legal and popularly accepted, much like abortion. The legalization of assisted suicide is a constant threat. Even where lethal prescriptions or injections cannot be legally provided, some of our most notable bioethicists urge that doctors be permitted to help the elderly and others commit suicide by self-starvation—a process known in euthanasia advocacy circles as VSED (Voluntary Stopping of Eating and Drinking).

Promoters of the culture of death never rest on their laurels. Listed below are a few of the more dangerous “advances” being promoted in bioethics.

Read it all here.

Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism and a consultant to the Patients Rights Council. His new book, Culture of Death: The Age of “Do Harm” Medicine, was just published by Encounter Books.

Quote of the Week - Jorge Luis Borges

"Dictatorships foster oppression, dictatorships foster servitude, dictatorships foster cruelty; more abominable is the fact that they foster idiocy."– Jorge Luis Borges

Quote of the Week - Giorgio Ghiringhelli

Giorgio Ghiringhelli

Photo: Samuel Golay

“Those who want to integrate are welcome irrespective of their religion. But those who rebuff our values and aim to build a parallel society based on religious laws, and want to place it over our society, are not welcome.”--Giorgio Ghiringhelli

In light of Islamic terrorism around the world, Switzerland is following the lead of Bavaria, France, Hungary and Italy, in cracking down on Islamic symbols and clandestine mosques. Even the generally open-minded Swiss are banning the “burqa” in public.

Voters in a predominantly Italian area of Switzerland voted Sunday, November 29, 2015 to ban full-face veils. According to the Agence France-Presse the decision has outraged the country’s Muslim community and Amnesty International,

The town of Ticino approved a referendum to ban burqas, after the Swiss parliament decided a ban would not “violate the country’s federal law.”

Read more here and here.

Quote of the Week - René Girard

René Girard with Martha McCullough, his wife of more than 50 years.
Girard died on November 4, 2015 at the age of 91.

"Jesus accepts to be the victim, and we don't really know why," Girard said. "There, what the Gospel said is that it is God himself who has allowed all this scapegoating, and says, 'You can forgive me, since now I am ready to become your victim myself.'"

Related reading:  RIP René Girard; René Girard: Stanford's provocative immortel is a one-man institution; History is a test. Mankind is failing it.; In Memory of René Girard: The Truth about Life and Death

Quote of the Week - Archbishop Michael Ramsey

"The faith to which we are called will always be folly and scandal to the world, it cannot be in the usual sense of the word popular; it is a supernatural faith and it cannot adapt itself to every passing fashion of human thought. But it will be a faith alert to distinguish what is shaken, and is meant to go, and what is not shaken and is meant to remain." -- Archbishop Michael Ramsey

Quote of the Week- Statement of the ICCA

This International Congress invites all Anglicans throughout the world (a) to a reexamination of the doctrine of the Church and (b) to a further consideration of areas of continuing ecclesial contention, for instance, the ordination of women, deemed by some to be a first order issue. This is necessary so that there may be a revival of Catholic Faith and Order, and a return to a biblical, credal, and conciliar fidelity. Only through honest discussion, ongoing prayer, and ultimate agreement will faithful Anglicans discern fully what God is doing in the great realignment taking place globally. This International Congress prays also that in God’s good providence there will be a truly Ecumenical Council of the whole Church to address contentious issues facing Christians and churches and to strengthen the faith of the Church.

Statement of the International Catholic Congress of Anglicans. Read the full statement here.

Quote of the Week - J.I. Packer

In 2002, the synod of the Anglican Diocese of New Westminster

authorized its bishop to produce a service for blessing same-sex unions, to be used in any parish of the diocese that requests it. A number of synod members walked out to protest the decision. They declared themselves out of communion with the bishop and the synod, and they appealed to the Archbishop of Canterbury and other Anglican primates and bishops for help. 

J. I. Packer was one of the people who walked out.

When asked why he walked out, he answered, "Because this decision, taken in its context, falsifies the gospel of Christ, abandons the authority of Scripture, jeopardizes the salvation of fellow human beings, and betrays the church in its God-appointed role as the bastion and bulwark of divine truth.”

Quote of the Week - Alexis de Tocqueville

"The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the States, and in uniting together they have not forfeited their nationality, nor have they been reduced to the condition of one and the same people. If one of the States chose to withdraw from the compact, it would be difficult to disprove its right of doing so, and the Federal government would have no means of maintaining its claims directly either by force or right." --Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America.

Quote of the Week - Patriarch Kyril

The general political direction of the [Western political] elite bears, without doubt, an anti-Christian and anti-religious character. We have been through an epoch of atheism, and we know what it is to live without God. We want to shout to the whole world, ‘Stop!'-- Patriarch Kyril of Moscow and all Russia

According to Fr. Patrick Reardon, priests in the Russian Church Abroad are no longer given blessing to sign any civil marriage documents in the United States.

Quote of the Week - Edward Bouverie Pusey

The revival of High Church catholicity in the Church of England was expressed in the Oxford Movement, and its acknowledged leader was Edward Bouverie Pusey, who said, "We must bend our minds and conform them to the teaching of Holy Scripture, or men will end in bending Holy Scripture to their own minds, and when it will not bend, will part with it."

In 1833 Pusey joined John Keble and John Henry Newman in producing the Tracts for the Times, which gave the Oxford Movement its popular name of Tractarianism.

Quote of the Week - Rt. Rev Patricia Storey

“I believe that civil partnerships give gay people clear civil rights and recognition as people committed to one another, and I fully endorse this. However, I do not think that this requires the redefinition of marriage to uphold it, and I do not believe that marriage should be redefined.”-- Rt. Rev Patricia Storey, in a letter to the clergy in the United Diocese of Meath and Kildare

Related reading:  Black Clergy Oppose Gay Marriage; Homosex Not Universally Accepted; Genesis on Homosex: Beyond Sodom; Legal Equality of Marriage Redefined?

Quote of the Week - Fr. Thomas Hopko

"In his actions in and toward the world of his creation, the one God and Father reveals himself primarily and essentially in a 'masculine' way."-- Fr. Thomas Hopko (Women and the Priesthood, p. 240)

Father Hopko contributed much to the conversation about women in ministry, while upholding the Church's tradition of the all male priesthood. His podcasts are available to hear at Ancient Faith Radio.

His books include Speaking the Truth in Love: Education, Mission, and Witness in Contemporary Orthodoxy; Christian Faith and Same Sex Attraction: Eastern Orthodox Reflections

Hopko died of complications from congestive heart failure due to amyloidosis on March 18, 2015, in Wexford, Pennsylvania. May he repose in peace and rise in glory.

Quote of the Week - Shakespeare

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” ― William Shakespeare, As You Like It

Quote of the Week - St Anthony the Great

“A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, ‘You are mad; you are not like us.'” — St. Anthony the Great

On civilized men

“The most pressing question on the problem of faith is whether a man as a civilized being can believe in the divinity of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, for therein rests the whole of our faith.”--Fyodor Dostoevsky

"Over-civilization and barbarism are within an inch of each other.--G.K. Chesterton

Quote of the Week - Father Gabriel Naddaf

Greek Orthodox priest Gabriel Naddaf says:

"In Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iran, innocent Christians are hanged for their faith in Jesus. Yet Reverend Stephen Sizer was welcomed as a guest of Khomeini’s daughter. Sizer’s hatred knows no bounds."

Crusading Anti-Zionist vicar Stephen Sizer is in Iran again to "expose" the Zionist lobby in England at an anti-Israel conference in Tehran. Presumably RPP will feature in his presentation to all those peace-loving anti-Zionist moderates gathered in Iran, as we made his official Zionist Lobby listing here. Sizer implicates Iranian Christians by stereotyping them as belonging to a big Zionist Lobby.

Cardinal John Njue on US Export of Gay Activism

In response to President Obama's June 2013 tour of three African nations, the Roman Catholic Cardinal of Kenya, John Njue, said, “Those people who have already ruined their society…let them not become our teachers to tell us where to go.”

To Obama’s promotion of same-sex relations, Cardinal Njue said, "I think we need to act according to our own traditions and our faiths.”