Mediocrity and materialism are systematically strangling the Western Christian (and therefore the Western Church), and like the proverbial frog in the frying pan, he doesn't even know it. Dan Edelen is one of the last feeble voices among the faithful who are gasping for air amidst the suffocating lukewarmedness. He always writes good stuff, but this post simply defies adjectives.

Warning: side effects may include goose bumps.

Why do men need so much alteration? The Christian answer - that we have used our free will to become very bad - is so well known that it hardly needs to be stated. But to bring this doctrine into real life in the minds of modern men, and even of modern Christians, is very hard. When the Apostles preached, they could assume even in their Pagan hearers a real consciousness of deserving the Divine anger. The Pagan mysteries existed to allay this consciousness, and the Epicurean philosophy claimed to deliver men from the fear of eternal punishment. It was against this background that the Gospel appeared as good news. It brought news of possible healing to men who knew that they were mortally ill. But all this has changed. Christianity now has to preach the diagnosis - in itself very bad news - before it can win a hearing for the cure.

-C.S. Lewis

WORLD on wedding registries:

I hate wedding registries, mainly because they make no sense. The giving of wedding gifts, presumably, began in the dawn of time when parents and friends realized that newlyweds were poor and had no forks...

Our culture of affluence has grown far beyond forks and tablecloths and hope chests...

Heh, I'd have to agree. I've actually felt this way for a good while.

I'd agree that Lewis and Tolkien wove free-market themes into their books. But this strikes me as a gigantic trivialization.