We have seen thus far in our Vatican’t series that with the death of Jesus came the death of an idolatrous and serpentine system according to which God is a kind of Genie in a bottle whose job is to provide us with the sense of wholeness and well-being that we lack. But if this […]
Category: Humanity
VATICAN’T (Catholicism Without All the Uplifting Parts): Week 7 — The Absurdity of the Cross
Here’s what we have seen thus far in our Vatican’t series: All humans feel an innate lack or void within ourselves. The serpent suggested to Eve in the Garden — and evangelicalism echoes this sentiment — that this sense of emptiness and incompleteness is not natural but foreign, and must be overcome by jumping through […]
VATICAN’T (Catholicism Without All the Uplifting Parts): Week 6 — The Dangers of an Early Easter
In my last post in this series I suggested that participating in the crucifixion of Christ (what Jesus sometimes called “carrying our cross”) involves a willingness to put to death our old gods, our old idols, and our old way of thinking, and moreover, we must do so without really knowing what, if anything, will […]
VATICAN’T (Catholicism Without All the Uplifting Parts): Week 3 — Quantum? I Barely Knew Him!
As I have stated, the purpose of this series is to integrate some of the spiritual and theological ideas I have been engaging with over the past several years with my own Cathol(ish)ism. In addition to things like religionless Christianity and radical theology I am also drawing from a rather unlikely source of inspiration: quantum […]
VATICAN’T (Catholicism Without All the Uplifting Parts): Week 2 — The Gospel According to Satan
My last post was the first in a series titled VATICAN’T: Catholicism Without All the Uplifting Parts in which, as I wrote, I’m attempting to “bring influences like divine nonviolence, religionless Christianity, quantum theory, and radical theology to bear upon Catholicism in an effort both to bolster its already-existing sacramental devotion to the physical world, as […]
Anthony Bourdain and the Christian Response to Tragedy
Like most of us, I awoke this morning to the news that Anthony Bourdain had committed suicide. As I went on social media I began to see countless reactions to this tragedy from friends and acquaintances expressing shock, heartbreak, and condolences to the loved ones he left behind. But then I came across a Facebook […]