The Christian Vanguard

I want to compare two personalities: Rush Limbaugh and Ravi Zacharias. Both were loved and hated intensely by many people. Both were involved in the public sphere. Both were involved in an arena where emotions can run high. Both wrote books. Both were heard on air. Both had speaking engagements. And both battled with sin. One with sexual perversion, and the other with drugs. But Rush made his sin public, and publicly repented. He left his show, entered rehab, even turned himself in to the authorities, damaging his reputation. Ravi hid his sin, denied it, attempted to destroy peoples lives in order to cover it up, for fear of what it would do to his reputation. We endearingly remember Rush. We now despise Ravi. Be sure that your sin will find you out. My point being: do not fear confession and repentance!

In the last few weeks, my social media accounts have been abuzz with the topic of abortion. One common defense of it has been something like, "Since unwanted children will not be aborted, they will most likely end up in the foster care system, where they will probably be abused and raped. So abortion is a better option." After I asked whether they would apply this logic to a two year old, they said they would. In the eyes of my interlocutors, death was a better option. This isn't an uncommon view. I would think most, if not all, persons who committed suicide thought the exact same thing and this motivated their suicide. So, is death better an abused life? In light of the convertibility thesis, it is not.  The convertibility thesis states that "being" and "good" are basically the same thing, just considered differently. Where there is being, there is goodness coextensive with it. If being alive is participating in being, and death is not participat...

My uncle is dying. If he were to die tonight, I would have no doubt he would land in hell. I feel partially responsible because when I was a teen, I took his vulnerable soul and introduced him to Satanism, and encouraged him to denounce his Catholic, even if nominal, faith. So now, I have to consider what options are available to me so that I may undo my damage and help save him.  My options are few, if any, and prospects do not look good. For now, all I can do is wait. And pray. Can I hope? I don't know.  Last week, when I was teaching Catechism for the teens, I was going through the theological virtues, and I had some difficulty trying to explain hope to them. I gave the very basic, "It's a combination of desire and expectation of something good, in our case, communion with God." As far as I can tell, this is adequate, but I don't know that I fully comprehend it. Is it not presumptuous to expect God to save me? On what do I base this expectation? Probability? ...

Today was an enlightening day. I met Alexander Pruss, someone I highly admire and respect, and to be honest, am a little intimidated by. I took notes on my phone from his lecture, and I'll copy it here, but do scroll down for my interaction with him during Q&A. 

I suffered the death of a friend today. I loved her, and I loved her greatly. We made plans together, to graduate together, to go camping together, to shake the world up for Christ together. Those plans will not come to fruition. Love acts. Love that does not act is not love. And now, I cannot act. So, do I not love anymore? This is an interesting question.  Dietrich  von Hildebrand was married and widowed before he married Alice. From what I am told, there was a great respect on Alice's part for the deceased wife, and presumably, Dietrich still loved his first wife. But is this the same love? It might seem like it. The day before she died, he loved her, and loved her with a spousal love. The day after she died, it's probably also true that he loved her, and loved her with a spousal love. But that kind of love is unitive, and that unity is no longer possible (Maybe that's an argument for an afterlife. If one doesn't continue to exist after death, we cannot love the...