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Reality, fantasy and ecumenism

By Charles Marsh Recent conversations online and off have shown me something very curious. Some of what I believe to be Christian verity some other Christians take to be mere fantasy. They are cessationists and I am not . According to them, the things that I believe about tongues and prophecy and words of wisdom and of knowledge are sheer moonshine. So while in some churches I am thought orthodox enough, in others I am regarded as delusional or something rather like it. There are other matters in which, in like manner, some Christians view certain beliefs of other Christians as no better than free imagination, runaway fantasy or perhaps something worse: damaging falsehoods not harmless nuttiness. I admit to being somewhat dismayed by other Christians' newspaper novenas and Facebook prayer schemes. I do not think that is how prayer works. Their idea seems to be that if you repeat such and such a prayer x times, or republish it or "like" it or retweet it, then you w...
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Science versus religion is a phony issue

By Charles Marsh The problem is that science, well suited to look at repeatable events, is at a loss about singular ones.  Some people suppose that science trumps religion, that a modern understanding of the world through science renders religious understandings obsolete. Some others suppose that religious understanding can be used to refute science. Both views are wrong. Science is rooted in philosophical naturalism. That is the stance that says we will explain what we see without reference to supernatural agencies. Science describes what happens without recourse to explanations involving angels, demons, gods, fairy godmothers, humors, vapors or ghosts. Acting on this basis, science has done a great deal of good. It has gotten rid of superstitions about what causes disease, where insects come from and a good many other misunderstandings. Notice that science is morally neutral. The same disciplines that give us vaccines and disease prevention can as...
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What is a "Francisism"?

The first time I used the word I used it in attempting to explain some of Pope Francis's headline-grabbing remarks. This is what I said: This strikes me as another one of those Francisisms that generates lots of good press for Francis and then is walked back via more careful statements by others in the Church. I have remarked before on his tendency to do things like this. But it was not the first time I had encountered the concept. My remarks on this habit of Francis's go back a couple of years, to the early days of his pontificate. Francis tends to make sweeping-sounding statements that sound nearly un-Catholic in their generosity, toward gays, socialists, atheists, Lutherans and others. But when the statements are unpacked in light of Catholic faith and practice, they do not mean all that they seem to suggest. The statements are narrowly and logically true in some sense but really say less than they seem at first to say. Before I coined the word I wrote Pope Franc...
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