Good camera work, great subject material. . .

I happened to run across this link to a spectacular set of photos from Peter Li whose work capturing the sacred spaces of England and other lands is simply amazing.  You can look at it here although there may be other websites to showcase his gift and the wonderful churches he photographs.  The subject material of the camera is itself amazing space.  Beauty is certainly not an end in and of itself for Christians but why on earth would beauty not be an ally and component of faithful Christian worship?

If there is a cause for beauty, is not that cause the Gospel of Jesus Christ?  At one time the Church was not simply the place for art and beauty but its patron and cause.  I fear that age has escaped us.  It is hard to justify spending money on beauty when construction budgets exceed plans and dollars are short and the urgent need for missions ever present in each spending decision.  We seem to have forgotten that we ought to be building not for a moment but for a long span of time in which the faithful will be gathered into that space, nurtured there in Word and Sacrament, and children raised up into the faith.  We seem to have forgotten that the Church is not simply another place where beauty lives but the place where an exclusive beauty lives -- the beauty of that which serves the Word in the same way music does.  The Word can have several servants and we need not choose.  The glory of song and instrument along with the glory of art and beauty (even in ceremony!) raise us up from ourselves to behold in eye what the ear hears.

While it might be nice to be able to build a space from the ground up, there is no more urgent cause than to make the structures we have serviceable to the liturgy and a gift to the eye while the people gather around the Word and Table of the Lord.  It can be done.  It is being done -- though not often enough.  We have a gift to give the world and Christ has entrusted that gift to us to preach and teach and also to present in visual form.  Let us raise the eye to God, give testimony to the voice of the Gospel in the beauty of the place where that Gospel has called us, where the Spirit works to enlighten and sanctify us, and where we receive the gifts that nowhere else can be found. 

20,000 babies or none. . .

In 2020, actress Michelle Williams stood on the stage of the Golden Globes to receive accolades for her performance and in her speech she described the abortion that had allowed her the chance to choose her career instead of motherhood.  It was heralded at the time as a political call to action for those places where abortions are not freely accessible and gave thanks that she lived where abortions were freely accessible.  Not being one to watch such events, I probably did not comment on it at the time.  It was more of the drivel that passes for feminist propaganda in a world where it has become normal among the elite, the educated, and the economically gifted.  Sacrificing children on the altar of fame, as the video put it, was and, perhaps, still is a sacred tenet of the woke.  How odd it was then when I found out after another such event six years later that an actress used her moment in the sun to laud motherhood.

Ironically, the headlines draw attention to her as the first Irish actress to win an Oscar—not to her own testament to motherhood, to her want to have more babies with her husband, and to her wish to spend her future helping her daughter discover the wonder of life.  I guess that part of it was not news but it should be.  For a long time now, motherhood has been portrayed as a curse, a drain on ambition, a sacrifice of career, and, worst of all, the loss of your very identity and personhood.  Daughters were listening and so were sons.  Now we live in a world in which the fertility rate in the US is about 1.6 children per woman (below the replacement rate of 2.1), and, lower still in most of Europe—around 1.2 to 1.5 in countries like Italy and Spain. 2026 will likely see for the first time deaths exceed births in the UK.  Nearly everywhere it is accepted that women choose not to have children, regret having them, or are embittered because of the sacrifice having a child means to their careers and perceived success in those careers.  Could it be that this is changing?  At least that the other narrative is being challenged?

There was one more thing.  The same kind of crowd that erupted in applause in 2020 for the pro-abortion speech erupted in applause for this tribute to motherhood.  Were they simply being nice or were they realizing that the old narrative was crashing down upon everything as birth rates drop and the world looks at the graying of the population as being the face of our future?  I could say a great deal about this in terms of Christian faith and life but I will let this stand for now.  

 

  

When death is merely a choice. . .

On December 30, 2025, Canadian law allowing Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) was invoked to oversee the euthanasia of 26 year old Kiano Vafaeian. The young man was in no immediate health emergency and his only medical conditions were diabetes, lost vision in one eye and seasonal depression.  Yet these conditions were enough to allow the authorities to approve the procedure.  While series, especially the diabetes, none of these conditions was at the point of death considered life-threatening.  In fact, millions of people live productive and useful lives with some form of limited vision, including losing the use of one eye, with seasonal depression, and, according to the government, one in ten Canadians over 20 has been diagnosed with diabetes.  

The Canadian government lists five conditions on MAiD.  Four are relatively pro forma: a person must be over eighteen, make a voluntary request, give informed consent, and be eligible for treatment under Canada’s socialized medicine scheme.  The other criterion is less straight forward—the patient must have a “grievous and irremediable medical condition.” The illness, disease or disability must be serious. The patient must also be in an irreversible and advanced state of decline. Additionally, the individual must “experience unbearable physical or mental suffering.”  Finally, the suffering cannot be relieved in a way that the patient finds acceptable.  It may be relieved by treatment, medication, surgery, etc., but if the patient finds the treatment unacceptable, then the disease automatically qualifies the patient for MAiD.

Since most of you do not live in Canada, you may be wondering why this matters to you.  First of all, it is a matter of degree.  What happens in Canada is, in large measure, what is under consideration in the more liberal states of the US although we are typically years behind the implementation of such.  In other words, it is coming our way.  As of 2026, assisted death, also known as physician-assisted suicide or medical aid in dying, is legal in fourteen U.S. jurisdictions: California, Colorado, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington. These laws allow terminally ill adults to request and receive medication to end their lives peacefully.  Things are generally moving in Canada's direction here as well.  At some point, the word terminally will be changed to reflect the judgment of the individual that whatever the illness, the treatment is deemed unacceptable to the patient and euthanasia is requested.  That day is coming and perhaps is already now having its foundation laid in public law and public opinion.  After all, we have already decided that it is okay to abort a fetus to prevent them from even being born into a life that the mother has deemed not worth living.  How long will it take to extend that privilege to those already born?

Framing the whole thing with a word other than euthanasia or assisted suicide only increases the chance of this becoming acceptable in law and in the mind of the populace.  Death with dignity is one such phrase used to mask what is really being requested and really being done.  It always helps if you use the word choice somewhere in the title or explanation as well.  In any case, it is worth keeping a look out for this issue to become normal in the thinking of people and the crafting of laws.  Imagine that -- we judge death normal but God decides it must be answered with the power of life and the resurrection!

An indecent world. . .

As if our world could not be more in need of common sense and common decency, an appeals court last month decided that biological men should be permitted to enter an all-female spa that serves a clientele of females ages 13 and up.  In Olympus Spa v. Armstrong, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that Washington state can indeed enforce an anti-discrimination law to allow a biological man to enter the spa if he identifies as a woman. The Korean-inspired women’s spa limited admission to females only because its services involve full nudity for Korean scrubs, communal bathing, saunas, and massages.  The Washington State Human Rights Commission then entered into the picture alleging that the spa violated the state’s public accommodation law and the Washington Law Against Discrimination.  Whereupon, a three-judge panel for the 9th Circuit dismissed the spa’s First Amendment arguments for free exercise of religion and freedom of association in a May 2025 ruling.  Then, in March, the 9th Circuit this week denied a rehearing in the case by the full bench.  One dissented from this denial, insisting that the “supposed adults in the room have collectively lost their minds.”  I might add, so has the Washington State Human Rights Commission and anyone who holds with them.  It is the triumph of absurdity and stupidity in the name of an ideology masquerading as civil rights and has pretty much sealed the deal that we live in an indecent world in which such absurdity triumphs over decency and common sense every day of the week.  In a decent society, it is common sense that women and girls require privacy in their intimate spaces. 

I am amazed that this had to be argued under the cause of free exercise of religion and freedom of association.  Whether that is the law or not, there was a time in which decency was presumed and that was enough to prevent minors from being exposed to nudity without their consent or the consent of the adults in whose care they reside.  But not now.  It would seem that the Washington State Human Rights Commission and the 9th Circuit have decided that there is no such thing as decency or the protection of the minor and that the supposed female in possession of male genitalia has rights greater than any other in such a case.  I am not pointing this out so that people can be outraged -- I am writing about this because it proves the absurdity of our legal system without a hint of reason, common sense, or decency in pursuit of an absolute ideal that would require the surrender of all of this for the sake of male genitalia.  In other words, the supposed female with male genitalia has a right to be seen that is greater than the rights of anyone to privacy.  Again, truth is always stranger than fiction.  While I am fairly certain this will be overturn, the mere fact that it could be decided almost proves the entire point of the problems we have with the American judicial system today.  

 

 

A curious problem. . .

From what I have read, Rome is on its way to excommunicate the SSPX, a traditionalist group promoting the Latin Mass and, it would seem, uncertain about Vatican II.  The issue is over their decision to go forward with the consecration of a bishop or bishops in July of this year.  Apparently most everyone is sure that this is what is going to happen although at least one bishop is urging everyone to slow down.  So the point being made is that if the SSPX consecrates a bishop who had not received approval or endorsement from the pope.

What is curious to me and, I would think, a problem in Rome is that this is already a practice.  Rome has granted to China the authority to decide on its own who will be bishops of the Chinese version of the Roman Church.  There is supposed to be some sort of dialog or conversation between China's governmental minions and Rome but that has not been the case.  China has gone ahead and decided for Rome who will be the bishops and Rome seems not to make a fuss over it.  Curious to me is that Rome has decided the Chinese version of the Catholic Church is more important to them than the traditionalists across the world who prefer the Latin Mass.  It is not just the Mass, however, but a group intent on being more Roman than just about anybody else in the Roman Catholic Church -- in doctrine and practice.  They are not important but a Chinese faction intent upon being as little Roman as possible is definitely the preference of the leadership.  How odd!

But, of course, it is not odd.  That is typically how things have gone in Christianity for some time.  Take the Anglicans, for example.  They find the problem people to be not those who question the Bible or nearly everything creedal or confessional but those who take it all as seriously as they can.  Globally, Anglicans are divided between those who want to be Anglican and those who like the name but not the doctrine once called Anglican.  Or the Methodists.  Remember, that the United Methodists disunited not because some wanted to push the boundaries of Christian belief or Methodist identity but because some wanted to keep it.  The conservatives had to go.  Not the liberals but the conservatives were the bridge too far.  Lutherans have the same story.  Those who like the name but who pick apart the Confessions and minimize the Catechism and who are content to live outside the tradition claim the high ground and the conservatives are seen as the problem child of Lutheranism.  Wow.  When did this happen?  How? Why?

A long time ago I said that the most dangerous Christian of all is the one who truly believes and intends to live within orthodox and catholic Christianity.  I wish it was a problem for all of us but it does not seem to be so.  Those who live on the liberal and progressive side of Christianity have claimed the high road in this battle and made the conservatives look petty, small, and narrow minded.  How strange it is to be the ones who pay attention to the words, creeds, confessions, and liturgies of the Church as normal and normative and then be asked to leave or shown the door.  But there it is.  It has happened nearly everywhere across Christianity.  Maybe the Pope will back away from Francis and closer to Benedict but I doubt he will do much more than slow the drift to the left that seems impossible to stop.  In every Christian tradition, the conservatives have become the bad guys and those who take the faith with a grain of salt have become the good guys.  Maybe the SSPX will be excommunicated or maybe not but I think we have all seen the handwriting on the wall.  Zealots are not welcome in Christianity and zealot simply means those who pay attention to the words of Jesus, believe in the facts of the Scriptures, confess the doctrine drawn from them, and practice consistently with that faith.