What’s Wrong with the World

The men signed of the cross of Christ go gaily in the dark.

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What’s Wrong with the World is dedicated to the defense of what remains of Christendom, the civilization made by the men of the Cross of Christ. Athwart two hostile Powers we stand: the Jihad and Liberalism...read more

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July 2019 Archives

July 8, 2019

The prophecy dilemma for literary device theorists

Recently Esteemed Husband and our friend Tom Gilson did a webinar for Apologetics Academy. I watched some of the livestream on Youtube. During such livestreams there is always some chat going on "on the side" in the comments, and this time a skeptic commentator was throwing in various questions, many of them irrelevant to what Tim and Tom were actually saying. One of his comments was something to this effect: Since the Gospel authors believed that Jesus fulfilled prophecy, wouldn't this have motivated them to invent things that never happened in order to be able to say that prophecy was fulfilled?

Since he is an outright skeptic, presumably he would have no qualms about saying that a Gospel author who did that was simply lying and was motivated by the desire to serve a religious cause by deceiving his audience. Still, one might ask him in that case why the evangelists believed in Jesus themselves, and in particular in his fulfillment of prophecy, if they knew that they had to invent things in order to "make" him fulfill prophecy. The skeptic would, one guesses, at that point have to fall back upon some generic statement to the effect that people, especially religious people, don't always think rationally about these things and may simultaneously believe in their religion and also believe that they are morally justified in lying to further it. Bart Ehrman has said this in so many words about early Christians. To my mind it is an unconvincing answer, particularly about the evangelists who were writing the very first memoirs of Jesus and claimed to have known him. At the founding of a religious movement, the distinction between "charlatan" and "sucker who listens to charlatan" is more stark and obvious, even to not-always-rational human beings. And if the evangelists were charlatans, their motivation is extremely difficult to figure out, given the initially low status and persecution of Christianity and the fact that they could have avoided much trouble for themselves had they not accepted and promoted Christianity.

But matters are difficult in a different way for the Christian literary device theorists whose work I am critiquing in my forthcoming books, The Mirror or the Mask and The Eye of the Beholder.

Continue reading "The prophecy dilemma for literary device theorists" »

July 10, 2019

Is this the end for Vincent Lambert?

There has been yet another reversal by the French courts, this time in the direction of Vincent Lambert's death. He is now, according to news stories, being dehydrated to death, and his parents have given up hope. May God have mercy upon him and his parents, and may divine justice eventually overtake those who have sought his death.

On a more mundane note, I wish someone with the relevant knowledge would write about the precise legal situation in France and about what sort of precedent this is likely to set. How will Vincent's death be likely to change things? What would it take legislatively in France to prevent future killings of this kind? I have been impressed by the amount of support for Vincent's life among the French and would like to know more about where things are at both legally and culturally in the areas of euthanasia, death by dehydration for the disabled, and related issues.

July 30, 2019

Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson

Alright, this British PM is going to be fun to watch. How much of his persona as the Oxford don who’ll be happy to drink pints with you at 1am, is reality or an act, I cannot say. What I can say is that his off-the-cuff analysis of Churchill’s rhetorical strategies is brilliant. Have a look: