Gilbert K. Chesterton, the renowned Catholic apologist, was a great friend with George Bernard Shaw, the famous playwright, even though Shaw, an agnostic, had major issues with Chesterton’s belief in God and especially with Chesterton being a Roman Catholic. But these differences didn’t deter them from being great friends and from deeply admiring each other. At one stage, Chesterton felt a need to defend Shaw from well-intentioned Christians who were vilifying him because of his agnosticism. Speaking in Shaw’s defense, he wrote: “There is one fundamental truth in which I have never for a moment disagreed with him. Whatever else he is, he has never been a pessimist; or in spiritual matters a defeatist. He is at least on the side of Life. ... Everything is wrong about him except himself.”...
A man in an Alaskan bar tells the bartender, "My snowmobile broke down in a blizzard. I was sure I was going to die. I prayed and prayed to God for help, but he didn’t answer me." The surprised bartender said, "But you are here and alive!" "Sure," the man responded, "thanks to two Eskimos who happened to come by."...
Something more must be said about the peculiar incident in Matthew’s gospel in which Jesus seems to answer the urgent question of the day, but, on deeper reflection, actually opens a much broader and more profound question which still resonates. Biblical texts are replete with contradictions, reversals and blanks which serve the subversive task of not answering the questions that seem most important to us and in ways we have come to expect...
(Resources listed here reference more than one reading and are normally shorter than the resources listed under the individual texts above. If you are looking to link the readings, check these resources.)
(Resources listed here reference more than one reading and are
normally shorter than the resources listed under the individual
texts above. If you are looking to link the readings, check these
resources.)
