ANOTHER REASON TO IGNORE IT: “Vatican’s economic statement will be way to the left of Wall Street financiers.”

On Monday, the Vatican will release a document on the reform of the international financial system which will be to the left of every politician in the United States. It will be closer to views of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement than anyone in the U.S. Congress. It will call for the redistribution of wealth and the regulation of the world economy by international agencies. Not only will it be to the left of Barack Obama, it will be to the left of Nancy Pelosi.

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BACK HOME? “Waiting For St. Benedict: Where Does Occupy Wall Street Go From Here?”

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LEFT-WING MISTAKEN NOTION: “Kingdom Work, Social Justice.”

I’m all for “social” justice. I’m fighting the trend I see today of equating “kingdom work” with public sector social justice work. As if “kingdom” is something done outside the church. As I read the Gospels, Jesus’ uses “kingdom” for himself/God as King, for his followers who enter into his kingdom vision, and for the ecclesial/social conditions created by those who follow Jesus and his kingdom vision. So, there is no such thing as “kingdom” outside those who follow Jesus. Yes, by all means, kingdom people extend kingdom into other areas but only so far as they are embodying Jesus’ kingdom vision.

Those on the right side of the theological spectrum may think I’m an ally of theirs on this point; not so. I want the church to be a kingdom embodiment and I’m not criticizing social work at all; I’m pushing back against the left-wing mistaken notion that kingdom is what happens outside the church, that kingdom is something bigger (and therefore other) than church, etc.. My view is traditionally anabaptist on this one. The local church is called to be am embodiment of kingdom realities. But kingdom realities only applies those ecclesial actions.

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CATHOLIC-MUSLIM COOPERATION: “No sex on campus?”

Another school year is in full swing. Frat houses around the country are once again swollen with partygoers and intoxicated youth. Sunday mornings once again mark the regret of thousands of young women who hooked-up the night prior and either cannot remember what they did, or do remember and are trying to forget.

Another hook-up season is in full swing.

But this hook-up season, there is an increasing phenomenon of unlikely bedfellows opting out: Catholic and Muslim women. These women of faith are increasingly allied in searching for a different way to live out their college tenure than from dorm room to dorm room. And they are finding that despite theological differences that run deep, shared perspectives about modesty, chastity, and dignity run deeper.

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SEX-SELECTION ABORTION & THE CONSTITUTION: “It’s a Girl.”

Four states—Illinois, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, and most recently Arizona—have enacted laws prohibiting sex-selection abortion. Those laws have yet to be tested in the courts. At least seven other states have considered bills that would ban the practice. A sex-selection-ban bill was introduced in Congress in 2009—I worked with committee staff on the bill—but it died in the then Democrat-controlled House.

Are such bans constitutional, under the Supreme Court’s decisions creating a right to abortion? The question such laws present is a dramatic one, challenging the underpinnings of Roe v. Wade in the most fundamental and direct of ways: Does the U.S. Constitution create a right to abortion, even when the woman’s reason for abortion is that she does not like the sex of her unborn child?

Sadly, the answer, under the Supreme Court’s absurd, through-the-looking-glass constitutional law of abortion, is yes. Under Roe and the Court’s 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a woman has a constitutional right to abort for any reason up to the point of “viability,” when the child could live outside the mother’s womb. Even after viability, a woman may abort for any “health” reason, an exception that ends up swallowing the rule: The Court’s abortion decisions define “health” justifications for abortion to include any “emotional,” “psychological,” or “familial” reason for wanting an abortion.

A pregnant woman’s (or a couple’s) preference for a boy rather than a girl would seem to fit comfortably within the gaping loophole for “emotional” or “familial” reasons for abortion. Parents are thus free to choose to kill female human fetuses because they are female, even when the unborn child could live outside her mother’s womb. It thus appears that, under Roe and Casey, laws banning sex-selection abortions are unconstitutional through all nine months of pregnancy.

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THE NEW FACE OF PROTESTANTISM: “Protestantism Today.”

The dynamic recent changes in world Christianity that have been well described by Philip Jenkins, Dana Robert and other outstanding scholars have affected Protestants even more than other Christians. A century ago, roughly three-fifths of the world’s identifiable Protestants lived in Europe, with another third in the United States. Today, almost three-fourths of identifiable Protestants live outside of Europe and the United States. More Anglicans go to church regularly in each of Nigeria and Uganda than in Britain and America (as Episcopalians) combined. Ethiopia, Tanzania and Madagascar all have Lutheran denominations as large as the biggest Lutheran denominations in the United States. There are far more identifiable Pentecostals in Brazil than in the United States. Among the countries with the most rapid recent Protestant expansion have been Armenia, Cambodia, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Nepal and — most significantly — China. As observant students have noticed, the recent expansion of non-western Protestant churches has been driven much less by missionaries from Europe and America than by local believers establishing local movements in response to local needs.

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CAN CHURCH NAMES BE COPYRIGHTED? “Another Argument on Mars Hill.”

The third Mars Hill I know seems caught in the middle. It is pastored in Sacramento, California by a friend of mine, Scott Hagan. Scott planted another church years ago in the Sacramento area, then moved to pastor a mega-church in Michigan and is now back leading at Mars Hill in Sactown. I have Pastor Scott’s permission to share what I am going to write next. Several weeks ago, Scott and his Sacramento congregation received a “Cease and Desist” letter which came from attorneys representing the Seattle Mars Hill Church.  They were told that the Seattle Mars Hill had copyrighted the name “Mars Hill” and they demanded that the California Mars Hill churches stop using the name and any logos with similar lettering.

But read the updates too.

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HOLISTIC MISSIONS MODEL: “Persecution Prompts Missions Agency to Transform.”

Once renowned for its roaming teams, OMI now settles down to make a lasting difference at the local level. Once decidedly “parachurch,” OMI now calls itself a church-led movement. Churches even have bishops, a development that was difficult for some OM staff outside India to swallow. (India’s legal structure recognizes the nomenclature of bishops, so OMI adopted it for their Good Shepherd churches.) Through this holistic missions model, the entire OM organization is also being reshaped. OMI comprises nearly half the total staff of OM worldwide.

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STATECRAFT IS SOULCRAFT: “Government Forms (or Deforms) Your Soul.”

“Statecraft,” Aristotle instructed his pupils, “is soulcraft.” What he meant is that the state or government, by its policies, procedures and actions, places moral ideas in the social and legal fabric and these ideas shape the quality of its citizens’ character. This central truth animates the understanding of politics supported by Catholic teaching.

Some thinkers, however, believe that the government should, and can, remain neutral on several controversial moral and social questions about which Catholics and other Christians have taken a strong stand, including the sanctity of life and the protection of marriage. These thinkers maintain, contrary to Aristotle, that statecraft is not soulcraft, that the government should not take a position on which views are right or wrong, since taking such a stance would violate the right of citizens to make up their own minds on these questions.

This view is mistaken for one simple reason: No matter what the government permits or forbids, it is taking a stance on what it believes about the nature of the human person and what is right or wrong, even if it denies that this is so.

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THE CORRUPTION OF LANGUAGE: “The Euphemistic Treadmill.”

What the Administration did (though it will be forgotten in the glow of having killed a despot) was engage in the venerable pastime of liars, politicians, and evildoers (but I repeat myself) known as “euphemism.” Euphemism is the practice of replacing an old and short English word like “war” with one or more longer terms like “limited kinetic operation.” The idea is to make the ugly thing the liar is trying to hide smell nicer by perfuming it with something that sounds softer, or scientific, or otherwise more palatable. So, for instance, the ante-bellum South spoke of slavery, not as slavery, but as “our peculiar institution.” Likewise, the Bush Administration replaced the old and plain word “torture” with the much nicer and more scientific sounding “enhanced interrogation.”  Funnily enough, the Gestapo did exactly the same thing.

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UNWEAVING THE RAINBOW: “Arguing For A Scientific Revolution In Art: Jonathon Keats.”

Let’s dispense quickly with the obvious errors. The Copernican Revolution was not the “humbling observation” we make of it today. The center of the universe was, in those days, the humble position, and Copernicus lifted that stigma from us. The “Copernican principle,” scientifically speaking, says that the human vantage point (the physical location from which we observe the universe) is not unique; but that is not the same as saying the human viewpoint is not unique. That is a philosophical conclusion, one that is fed not only by science but by many streams of thought; and the science contributing to it is at least as much Darwin as Copernicus.

Beyond that, there is something deeply troubling about the implication that art needs to get in step with science. Science is very good at what science is good at, while art is (or can be) very good at other things. Science knows how to deal with impersonal, law-governed regularities. Art is for personality, for freedom, and for surprise. Science per se knows nothing of beauty. Scientists do; and they often experience it in their investigations, their discoveries, even their equations. But this is a human experience, accessible only from a human viewpoint. It is not a laboratory finding.

To say that art should follow science is to say that personality, freedom, surprise, and beauty must decrease, while that which is statistical, predictable, and banal must increase.

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MATTHEW 24:36 WATCH: “Harold Camping Prediction: World Survives Doomsday (Again).”