When my wife and I first arrived in Bolivia, in January of 1990, we went to Cochabamba to attend the Instituto de Idiomas Maryknoll (Maryknoll Language Institute). My wife was taking the beginning course, while I was taking the advanced course. Though I was born overseas, I had grown up in the USA. So, I […]
Archives for 2009
Post-traumatic stress syndrome and the missionary
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, is an anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened. Traumatic events that may trigger PTSD include violent personal assaults, natural or human-caused disasters, accidents, or military combat. When I was a child, I can remember jokes […]
Roland Burris to be seated as Senator – Saturday Night Live at the Senate
I enjoy watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. I thoroughly enjoyed watching Tina Fay play Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live. I never thought that I would watch Saturday Night type of skits at the United States Senate. But, I find that I am having quite an enjoyable time watching egos get punctured, and […]
Immigration aside
From a newspaper article today comes the following quote: Immigration prosecutions have steeply risen over the last five years, while white-collar prosecutions have fallen by 18 percent, weapons prosecutions have dropped by 19 percent, organized crime prosecutions are down by 20 percent and public corruption prosecutions have dropped by 14 percent, according to the Syracuse […]
A small defense of the Calvinists
Having jumped on the Calvinists on the issue of the Early Church Fathers and history, I thought it would be only fair to mount a small defense of Calvinists on one issue. Calvinists are regularly accused of agreeing with the phrase that is so often heard in the South, “once saved, always saved.” It is […]
The scandal of Church history
In 1 Corinthians 15, St. Paul says: Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. . . . And if […]
For the Calvinists among us
To adiophora or not to adiophora – the Calvinist response
Huldrychus Zwinglius, the famous Swiss Reformer known to us as Uldrych Zwingli, and Jean Cauvin, the famous French Reformer who fled to Switzerland, known to us as John Calvin, are considered the fathers of the Reformed family of churches [shhh, and, of course, John Knox]. They, like all the Reformers, had to deal with the problem of […]
Adiophora, just a little dab will do you!
There is a major difference between the way in which the Lutheran and Anglican Reformers looked at history, and the way in which the Radical Reformers looked at history. But, that difference is important. And the key difference was stated by the Lutherans in one word they called, “adiophora.” So, what is adiophora? This may […]
You were a believer, yes . . .
  Thank you iMonk!
