Church

• Risen from the dead, or rumours of their death were greatly exaggerated: a blog I thought had lapsed, Mere Catholic Miscellany by an online friend, like NLM but using the principle ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’, like the 1940s-1950s picture of the Agnus Dei at Mass I used recently.
• Same, from Eastern Orthodoxy: This Is Life: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis.
  • On online vs real church. A bit Dreher-ish and AFR-ish in waxing about one’s new church as Owen might say but it makes some points.
  • More. We get the irony of saying that online but anyway. Stay away from most church blogs, get to know parish people face to face, go to Mass and say your prayers.
• Bad theology leads to bad art. From an official mainline blog. (C. Wingate: Mostly useful in tracking clericalist interest in (a) homosexuality and (b) making sure that the rest of the communion can’t tell them what to do. Me: If asked, I would defend their rights to govern themselves and to their property. How their communion governs them is none of my business. As some of them like to say, let’s coexist.) Like CNN on biblical illiteracy this arguably is a mainline sneer at flyover-country Christianity but again it makes good points. As Catholics and others have noted about Christian rock for example, as the wise cartoon conservative Hank Hill said, ‘You’re not making Christianity better; you’re making rock’n’roll worse.’ Or as John Boyden quoted to me a long time ago, a churchy story isn’t necessarily a Catholic story.