Tag Archive for ‘Marriage’

Mainline Marital Melange

Condemnation, the wrath of God, patterns of personal holiness—for mainliners, meaning Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Congregationalists, and the like, such stuff has the penetrating odor of mothballs and cedar chests. Sweet tolerance and gentle affirmation are the hallmarks of today’s mainliners.

Moonstruck Morality Versus the Cosmos

January 25 of this year marked the 50th anniversary of the surprise announcement of Pope John XXIII that he intended to convoke a general council. From 1959 to 1962, the soon-to-be-jettisoned constitutions and decrees that would have been discussed were composed by preparatory committees of eminent Roman theologians. Among these is one document that is remarkable for its keen prescience and consequent pastoral anxiety. It never even made it to the floor of the council.

Marriage in America—March 2009

PERSPECTIVE

Self-Evident Lies
by Thomas Fleming

VIEWS

Mainline Marital Mélange
by William Murchison
When the culture preaches to the church.

Immigration and Marriage in America
by R. Cort Kirkwood
Beyond definitions.

Moonstruck Morality Versus the Cosmos
by Hugh Barbour, O.Praem.
Romancing the self.

The Economist

Xenophon’s Oeconomicus offers a pragmatic alternative way of looking at questions of wealth, property, and human happiness.  He is neither an economist nor a philosopher, only a man who, though he valued courage and honor above wealth, understand the true significance of property as the foundation of prosperity and happiness.  In these dark times, his common-sense pagan wisdom has much to teach us.

Unce Sam’s Harem IV: Punishing Wives

I have been sketching out some of the features of husband and wife relations in the free commonwealths we often refer to as republics, though any government of law (e.g., constitutional monarchy) has as good a claim to be considered free, freer certainly than in a democracy in which, in principle at least, the will of the majority can unmake any law or tradition if in any given election a majority or even plurality of votes casts can be found to elect the suitable representative of the dictatorship of the many.

Uncle Sam’s Harem II

Christian Marriage
Christianity, although it did not overturn the basic pagan view of marriage, strengthened and disciplined the institution. Christian marriage is as much a break with Jewish traditions as with the somewhat easy-going pagan customs of the Empire.  Polygamy had been taken for granted in the OT, and even an apparent prohibition (Deut 17) on a ruler taking multiple wives is really a warning against rulers who would monopolize valuable resources: The same passage condemns multiplication of horses.  It is then perhaps odd that Jesus Christ nowhere referred to polygamy, neither to condemn nor approve it, though the tenor of his teaching would seem to be solidly against it:

Uncle Sam’s Harem

The nomination of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate (a phrase suddenly suggestive) has reopened the question not only of women in politics but a woman’s role in society. I am finishing a book, tentatively titled Thicker than Water, sketching out a political order based more on blood-ties and marriage than on theoretical individualism. I am going to post up a few bits from one chapter as background to why I believe it is wrong for women to be in politics at all.