Recently in Christian Life Category

Did the prosperity/health-and-wealth gospel contribute to the crash? They speak of people taking unwarranted risks, overextending themselves, and essentially "claiming" what was out of their reach. You wonder how many of these people bothered to read their bible (they note that Joel Osteen, a popular health-and-wealth monger, quotes very little scripture) when they say that "Jesus loved money too!" I suppose that's why he drove out the moneychangers, said "Blessed are the poor", and "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to be saved".

Still, I have a tough time believing that there are enough adherents to this false gospel to blame them for the economic crash. Did they exacerbate it? Maybe, but they hardly deserve all the credit.

In this interesting article a poll indicates that Americans are redefining "luxury" and including things such as microwaves in that definition. More people are dropping microwaves, air conditioners, dishwashers, dryers, TVs, and other appliances from their classification of "necessary" items. This is kind of funny because my dishwasher broke fatally some time ago and I haven't bothered to replace it, in part due to the economy. (The other part is due to the fact that the tile floor was installed after the dishwasher, it's going to be hard to get out and even harder to get another dishwasher back in.)

This reminds me of the different definition of "poor" people have. I look at people in countries such as Haiti (I only pick them out because Food For The Poor is always telling me about conditions there) and compare them with the people in our country with cars, TVs, microwaves, air conditioners, washers and dryers, entertainment systems, cell phones, cable subscriptions, Internet, computers, and so forth and wonder if there isn't something wrong when I am made to feel guilty that I am not doing more to help them. The poor in this country are rich compared to those overseas, who often lack running water, toilets, clean water, adequate shelter, non-dirt floors, and so forth. If you go to this site, you can rank your income worldwide. Let's say you are a single person at the 2009 U.S. poverty level ($10,830). You are in the top 13% of incomes in the world. Pretty interesting, eh?

I know someone who is, by U.S. standards, poor and definitely in a difficult financial situation. He told me recently that he signed up for a $100/mo cell phone plan. (This was on top of a land line, AFAIK.) I couldn't believe it. I just didn't see this as good stewardship of his funds.

So I'm glad to see people shedding what they own.

Duh.

But at least science now proves it.

Scientists demonstrate that for men with "hostile sexism" (e.g., men who think women have vicious motives in their relations with men) the area of the brain that processes objects lights up (rather than more interpersonal areas) when they see scantily-clad women.

This idea of sex being distorted as an objectivization of the woman is a theme in John Paul II's excellent book Love and Responsibility. He distinguishes in marital love between seeking the spouse using pleasure as an object and seeking pleasure using the spouse as an object. In other words, if your goal is sexual pleasure, and you see your spouse as a means to that pleasure, this is a distorted and damaging view of the marriage relationship and will adversely affect it. If, on the other hand, you're seeking to love your spouse as a person, even giving yourself to him or her, and you see pleasure is a happy accident, your relationship is much more healthy.

I think I posted this some other year but if you haven't heard it, I gave a talk on Lent some years ago you may be interested in listening to. Lent is a time of returning to the Gospel with renewed fervor. What we should be doing all year around, we make a special commitment to do during Lent. It is a liturgical journey from the desert, to the Cross, and to the empty tomb — a time of purification and enlightenment.

Did you know that while the term "Lent" means "Spring" (thus incurring the ire of certain fundamentalists), the word in Latin, "Quadragesima", simply means "forty days". Since Latin is the official language of the church, you can tell your fundamentalist friends that when they bring it up.

I heard an interesting argument today in a diocesan magazine. The author, a woman, commented that when she first heard of the objections certain Christians had to women wearing pants (back when women generally didn't wear pants), she was quite perplexed. That was my reaction too; I always considered that such people confused cultural mores with Gospel mandates. But she presented an interesting argument grounded in modesty for not wearing pants, specifically, that tight pants immodestly show the contours of the body that a dress (or, at least, a traditional dress) would not show. I never quite thought of it that way.

That doesn't mean that there aren't pants that are modest, or that there aren't dresses that are immodest (as everyone knows), but it puts a new perspective on the issue.

It may not be possible to go back. But it may be possible to keep modest in mind.