Mar 12
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Intelligent Design in School | Charles Foster

Here’s a zinger from Charles Foster’s The Selfless Gene: Living with God and Darwin:
ID should certainly be taught in schools. It should be taught in the marketing classes. It is a superb example of how, if you package an idea (like shampoo, a skin cream, or toothpaste) in pseudoscience, people will buy it.

Author: Stephen Barkley
Mar 05
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The Secret to a Life of Prayer | Robert Benson

I’m reading Benson’s little book on liturgical prayer, In Constant Prayer. In it he lays bare the secret to a successful life of prayer.
The secret to a life of prayer, by and large, is showing up.
Awesome.

Author: Stephen Barkley
Feb 26
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The Holy Tritiny of Art | Albert Schweitzer

Bach’s always been one of my favourite composers. When I stumbled across a two-volume work on Bach by Schweitzer, I couldn’t resist. In the Second Volume, Schweitzer offered some good comments on the role of various arts in the artist.
Every artistic idea is complex in quality until the moment when it finds definite expression. Neither [...]

Author: Stephen Barkley
Feb 19
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The Idiocy of Soul Patches | Chuck Klosterman

For a while in North American Christendom you had to sport a goatee to be a youth pastor. That trend has been eclipsed by the soul-patch. True, they’ve been trendy for a while now, but in lieu of any other way to trim your facial hair, they’re still tagging along.
Klosterman’s latest book is fantastic. While [...]

Author: Stephen Barkley
Feb 12
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A Killer Joke | G. K. Chesterton

Chesterton’s got a knack for hiding truth in humour. In one of his first novels, The Napoleon of Notting Hill, he worte this dialogue about an absurd joker who was about to become king.
‘He is a man, I think,’ he said, ‘who cares for nothing but a joke. He is a dangerous man.’
Lambert laughed in [...]

Author: Stephen Barkley
Feb 05
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On Reading the Bible Literally | Chuck Klosterman

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Here’s a line from Klosterman’s Eating the Dinosaur. He’s speaking about the lunacy of David Koresh:
Anyone who reads every line of the Bible as non-metaphoric text has limited credibility.

Author: Stephen Barkley
Jan 29
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What is Love? | Hans Urs von Balthasar

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I’ve finished reading von Balthasar’s Love Alone Is Credible, so this will be the last Weekend Wisdom post from him. I know I’ve gone to him a lot lately—he’s just that good. Here’s his simple-yet-profound definition of love:
Love is unconditional assent to and readiness for God’s will.
PS: I’d like to offer my apologies to everyone [...]

Author: Stephen Barkley
Jan 22
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For Truth and Love to Fly | Ephrem the Syrian

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This week I found a nugget from a hymn of St. Ephrem (in Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns):
Truth and love are inseparable wings—for truth cannot fly without love—and love cannot hover without truth.

Author: Stephen Barkley
Jan 15
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Damn It All To . . . | Hans Urs von Balthasar

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Here’s my fourth Weekend Wisdom post on von Balthasar’s Love Alone Is Credible. I just can’t resist. In today’s installment he speaks about how we understand hell:
Soaring in the air, I also necessarily experience the abyss below, which is only part of my own flight. Similarly, I can speak of hell only in relation to [...]

Author: Stephen Barkley
Jan 08
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How to Value Religious Books | Thomas à Kempis

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I was afraid this might happen. Thomas’ Imitation is storehouse of wisdom packed into pithy sayings. I don’t want to overwhelm Weekend Wisdom readers with him, but I couldn’t let this one slip by—especially given the number of book reviews I write.
Let not the authority of him that writeth whether he be of great name [...]

Author: Stephen Barkley