Were Early Churches Governed by Individual Bishops, or Groups of Elders? (Bullet Version)

What does Christ want the structure of the Church to look like? And what did the early Church look like? I’ve just written a thorough exploration of that question, but I know that the length (5000 words) is going to be too much for some readers, and that the sheer volume might it hard to… Continue reading Were Early Churches Governed by Individual Bishops, or Groups of Elders? (Bullet Version)

Were Early Churches Governed by Individual Bishops, or Groups of Elders?

This post is admittedly long. If you want a shorter version with just the major take-aways, try this version instead. What does Christ want the structure of the Church to look like? And what did the early Church look like? Broadly speaking, there are two camps: Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans: Local churches were run by a… Continue reading Were Early Churches Governed by Individual Bishops, or Groups of Elders?

Why the Seemingly Anti-Marian Passages in the Bible?

There are a couple of passages which, every time they come up in the Readings at Mass, admittedly make me cringe a little. The first is from Luke 8:19-21 (we just heard the parallel version from Matt. 12:46-50 at Mass on Tuesday): Then his mother and his brethren came to him, but they could not… Continue reading Why the Seemingly Anti-Marian Passages in the Bible?

Burden-Shifting Protestants and Atheists

Protestants and atheists are dissimilar in most regards, and I suspect both sides would be happy with my making this observation. But there is one area in which the two groups behave all too similarly: a fallacious sort of burden-shifting argument. For purposes of this post, we’ll call it “the Norseman and the Atheist.”