Announcing A.D. Day!

Remember the scene in MERRY CHRISTMAS, CHARLIE BROWN, where our poor bald hero, Charlie Brown, dismayed and lost when he sees commercialization and selfishness robbing the meaning of Christmas, cries out in despair asking what the real meaning of Christmas is? And Linus, trusty blanket in hand, recites a fifty second quote from ( Read more... )

I was working hard on my latest project, a yarn about a modern boy who wants to be a knight of King Arthur’s (who is not dead, you may recall, merely asleep), when a reader with the doglike name of Malcolm the Cynic wrote this note to a reader glum with the news of the times, seeing the barbarian everywhere victorious, and the forces of light ( Read more... )

A reader asked me about the Deist argument against miracles.

The first argument, best elucidated by Thomas Paine in his unintentionally oxymoronically-titled AGE OF REASON, says that God, being an omnipotent and omniscient creator, has made the machinery of the universe with all the chains of cause and effect in place as neatly as clockwork, with ( Read more... )

Here is my column for today’s EveryJoe THE WRIGHT PERSPECTIVE, which I post herein hope of readers may make visiting the column a regular habit.

Atheism Causes Brain Damage

There are two kinds of atheist: a rational atheist, whose disbelief in God is grounded on some rational reason he can articulate, and an irrational atheist, who hates a God in ( Read more... )

If one had to recommend to a muggle, that is, to someone who lives outside the secret wizardly universe of GK Chesterton, which is the first and best and most essential essay of Chesterton’s to read, I would select the following, which appeared in the book HERETICS.

The reader will perhaps be disoriented to realize that this work was written over ( Read more... )

A reader put forward the idea that the Protestant Reformation, allegedly by challenging the Christian desire for unity in dogma that hitherto differentiated Christians from pagans, allowed for freedom of inquiry in Protestant nations, and created or perhaps only encouraged the birth of science.

This is an old, old slander, and one that was popular ( Read more... )

Since my last column was one of vexation, I thought I must say a word of admiration as well. I thought this was the cutest thing I have come across in quite a while, and surprisingly profound.

This is from the pen of one Laura McAlister, who described herself as a Catholic, writer, tea-drinker, evangelist, Austenite, feminist and aspiring countess.
( Read more... )

A reader writes and asks:

John, convince me not to turn to Islam after what just happened earlier today with the Supreme Court ruling, because right now, I’m trying to think of ways to commit something that I know is heinous while minimizing my digital fingerprint.

Sir, I cannot convince you, but I can tell you what convinced me. Here is the tale:

( Read more... )

Someone asked me my opinion of the Pope’s recent encyclical letter,
Laudato Si which the Leftstream Press reported as being in support of the theory of Man-caused Global Flooding/Drought and Warming/Cooling.

I have not had the opportunity to read the encyclical, but friends of mine brought quotes from it to my attention. Hence this column is merely ( Read more... )

It is only fitting that the days and customs of this, the holiest week of the year, be mentioned in a civilization that has largely forgotten them.

PALM SUNDAY

Palm Sunday, most of you know. It is commemorates the day of the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem on the back of an ass’s foal. The priests and deacons wear red vestments for Mass. ( Read more... )