Sunday, March 26, 2006

The Jones Roundup 2

Click on the above t-shirt and enlarge it to see the face. Gotta have one, that's good! I have suspicions that my friends who happen to be "war-hawks" might actually wear a hat like that when blogging. Personally I wear an authentic Robin Hood hat when blogging. (You're authorized to laugh, it's a joke.)

blip - Stanley Hauerwas, Tony Blair, and George W. Bush.

The Progressive - America's Blinders by Howard Zinn

Religion & Ethics Newsweekly - Iraq: Just War Revisited

tNR - THE CHRISTIANIZING OF AMERICA, Without a Doubt
This is a substantial review (16 pages) by Damon Linker of Richard John Neuhaus' new book Catholic Matters: Confusion, Controversy, and the Splendor of Truth. Damon Linker is the former editor of First Things. His book, The Theocons: Secular America Under Siege, will be published by Doubleday in September.

John L. Allen Jr. - All Things Catholic

ZENIT - Unbelief and Bad Belief, Vatican Document Weighs How to Evangelize Culture

Pontifications - Catholic Justification Gets a Protestant Nod

Pastor John Wright wrote a series of posts on The Catholic Spirit.
March 19, 2006
March 20, 2006
March 21, 2006
March 22, 2006

The Japery - Abandoning Our Mentally Ill

TCRnews.com - Unashamed Moralists in the Personalist Tradition by Robert Coles

Clairity's Place - Why the Church? (Religious Sense Lecture 5)

Second Spring
John Milbank - The Future of Love
Jose Granados - Love and the Cosmos PDF
Antonio Lopez - God as an Event of Love PDF
Louis Bouyer - The Prophetic Meaning of the Continuance of Israel and of the Revolt of Islam
The High Point and the Decline of Western Theology
Contents of the Book The Invisible Father from which the above chapters are taken
Jeremy Beer - Resurrecting Caelum et Terra (On Whig Thomism, Neoconservatives, etc.) LINK
Aidan Nichols OP - Thomism and the Nouvelle Theologie PDF
Stratford Caldecott - How did Christianity lose its grip on Western culture?

How did Christianity lose its grip on Western culture? The rise of modern science and the impressive power of modern technology obviously had a lot to do with it...
Christopher Dawson on Technology and the Demise of Liberalism by Russell Hittinger (I refer once again to this article b/c he makes some very interesting points about the effects of technology in regards to the cultural shift in support of contraception and abortion.)

30 Days «It is impossible to be faithful to Scripture and not take Mary seriously»
A comment on the joint declaration of the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission (ARCIC) on Mary: grace and hope in Christ by Rene Laurentin

Asianews.it - Pope: Everything in the Church goes back to Mary’s “Here I am”

Benedict XVI consigned the ring, 'a nuptial sign' to the 15 new cardinals. Today’s celebration of the Annunciation 'helps us to consider today's event, which emphasizes the Petrine principle of the Church, in the light of the other principle, the Marian one, which is even more fundamental'.

I end this roundup with a beautiful poem from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'll be interested to see what people make of the Linker article on Neuhaus. I suspect that there is more going on here than meets the eye, since Linker was editor of FT and there didn't appear to be any rancor about his departure.

As for the Linker article, parts of it are superb. It is the first piece that has highlighted Neuhaus' theories about America renewing its covenant with God, with which I have always been uncomfortable. It really brings together a lot of aspects of Neuhaus' ideas in a way that just hasn't been done before.

On the other hand, Linker's criticism of Neuhaus as a theocrat and wannabe tyrant are, I think, wide of the mark. He brings up, but does not really make much of, the fact that Neuhaus disagrees with many Catholics (including, to a large degree, the late Holy Father) on the relation between capitalism and Church teaching. Can Neuhaus really be such an authoritarian if he disagrees in this way or if he endorses capitalism fairly wholeheartedly? In addition, he starts off the piece with Neuhaus' concerns about America's lack of purpose but doesn't point out that Neuhaus' rather strong patriotism doesn't sit totally easily with Church tradition. Despite the merits of the piece, I think that ultimately it just tells a lot of liberals what they want to hear: these religious conservatives are just anti-modern authoritarians.

scriblerus

Fr. D.L. Jones said...

Scriblerus,

This is a very interesting article. Thanks for pointing it out to me! I agree with all your points above including your criticisms of Neuhaus in regards to capitalism, the War in Iraq, patriotism, etc.

I wonder if Linker focuses on Neuhaus in the book as much as he does so in the article? I don't necessary subscribe to some type of a major conspiracy theory that Neuhaus is the theocon-in-chief of, I wonder if he's friends with Andrew Sullivan. But one has to recognize the influence that Neuhaus has had through FTs and ECT. Assuming what Linker proposes is true, I welcome Neuhaus plans and desires for America in lieu of the alternatives. One of the most brilliant articles I have read in the recent past was Our American Babylon. I highly recommend it.

Fr. D.L. Jones said...

Neocon vs. Theocon?
The original tNR article (Jacob Heilbrun, "Neocon v. Theocon," The New Republic, December 12, 1996) is not on-line any longer, but it's the classic article which coined the term "Theocon."

Unknown said...

Last April, Linker wrote an article for TNR on JPII, claiming that JPII's moral absolutism and defense of it was his greatest error.

I don't have interest in reading anything else by him... there's too much good stuff to read instead.

Fr. D.L. Jones said...

Does anybody know the story around Linker being FTs editor? Maybe he had some journalism credentials, I don't know. How was he ever hired by them? Why did he leave? He seems like he was a spy in their midsts or maybe he had that conversion when working with Neuhaus. The article is not a badly written one, but slanted like any biased liberal would write.

Unknown said...

Check out the first comment at Amy Welborn's blog, here.

And in another post, she links this post at Mirror of Justice.

Fr. D.L. Jones said...

Chris - thanks for the links. They were very helpful.