Choice Excerpt #1 - 2004-10-01 22:40:17
[on the desert island}
"They did not even explore the island, for MacIan was partly concerned in prayer and Turnbull entirely concerned with tobacco; and both these forms of inspiration cn be enjoyed by the secluded and even the sedentary."* * * * * * * * * * * *
[after raging atheist Turnbull has fallen, and hard, for a good Catholic girl]
"I want you to hate me!" cried Turnbull, in agony. "I want you to be sick when you think of my name. I am sure there is no God."
"But there is," said Madeline, quite quietly, and rather with the air of one telling children about an elephant. "Why, I touched His body only this morning."
"You touched a bit of bread," said Turnbull, biting his knuckles. "Oh, I will say anything that can madden you!"
"You think it is only a bit of bread," said the girl, and her lips tightened ever so little.
"I know it is only a bit of bread," said Turnbull, with violence.
She flung back her opn face and smiled. "Then why did you refuse to eat it?" she said.
James Turnbull made a little step backward, and for the first time in his life there seemed to break out and blaze in his head thoughts that were not his own.
"Why, how silly of them," cried out Madeline, with quite a schoolgirl gaiety, "why, how silly of them to call you a blasphemer! Why, you have wrecked your whole business because you would not commit blasphemy."* * * * * * * * * * * * small C. E. #3: - 2004-10-01 22:51:29
"Turnbull was walking rather rampantly up and down the garden on a gusty evening chewing his cigar and in that mood when every man suppresses an instinct to spit. He was not, as a rule, a man much acquainted with moods, and the storms and sunbursts of MacIan's soul passed before him as an impressive but unmeaning panorama, like the anarchy of Highland scenery."* * * * * * * * * * * * Interesting New Republic article - 2004-10-02 07:31:56
about why Bush, unlike Carter & the Clintons (Chelsea even sang in the choir) doesn't go to church.
It's especially interesting because it highlights society's "it's not polite to talk about religion" attitude, one that veils an unresolved, half-baked set of unexamined beliefs, that Chesterton skewered, with force, in his novel.
It's a question worth asking: for all his religiousity, why doesn't Bush go to church?* * * * * * * * * * * * Good Comment from a Religious Thread on Metafilter: - 2004-10-02 07:52:15
"I mean, what with modern evangelism being what it is, the fact that Bush doesn�t attend church comes as no surprise. "Born Again" Christians long ago decided that their faith was less about the formulaic comings and goings of scripture, church attendance and community and more about new age self-help and personal fortune. (Prayer of Jabez anyone?) This is why one can attend Benny Hinn revivals and never see a bible and why mega churches cum health clubs with �alternative hours� such as the narcissistic World Redemption Outreach have grown in popularity. Indeed, why study the bible in Sunday school when evangelicals can have it regurgitated for them by celebrity self-help gurus on compact disc as they zip along the interstate in their SUVs going from one business meeting to another?"
Ypsidixit and her adventurous Catholic friend, who wandered around the night roads of Wayne County last weekend, came across just such a mall-church as pictured on the World Redemption site. I didn't even realize it was a church till I saw a cheapo mass-produced banner strung up front about getting a new life.
Note the World Redemption motto, one which should send sensible, thinking people of any religious stripe running for the hills: "Can't be Explained. Only Experienced." If it can't be explained, unlike the thousands of scholarly Catholic works that have been written through the ages, crowned by Aquinas's Summa,, the resolutely atheist Y. wants no part of it.
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...that there is a ball and cross in the World Redemption Outreach logo:
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