Al Gore is doing much better work as a private citizen than he ever did as a politician.

Sure, he’s arrogant and even a bit annoying.  But he’s participating in civil discourse now like he never has before, and it’s wonderful to see.  A great article in the New York Review of Books.

Sunday’s readings include the Prodigal Son story.

With readings like this, I like to make it interesting, since we already know the whole story. So let’s play some “what if” games.

What if the Father said “No! Forget you! You are not welcome back here!”

What if the Son saw where he was among pigs, accepted it and moved on from there, refusing to return to his father out of stubborn pride? Even if the servants were doing better, he’d rather be with the pigs tahn admit defeat or weakness. He would keep on.
What if the older brother had to convince the father to let the son come back instead of the other way around?

What if the son came back and his father had died?

What if the son had met someone else who could have provided for him?

What’s interesting about these what-if games is that each of them represented a theological take on our relationship to God, just as Christ’s story also is an allegory for our relationship to God. Of course, the story of the Prodigal Son–of our sin and then our return–is universal. God will always be there to welcome us back. Yet we often envision our relationship with God as being one of these other stories. At least I do.

It’s hardest, for me, anyways, to picture an all-loving God. Just because it’s true doesn’t mean it makes sense.

More here.

In case you hadn’t heard, noted Catholic theologian Rev. Peter Phan is being investigated by the Vatican for his writings.  You can read more at the Washington Post, which ends its article with a selection from one of Phan’s recent articles in Commonweal:

He wrote: “It is only by means of a patient and painstaking investigation of particular texts, doctrines, liturgical practices, and moral precepts that both differences and similarities between Christianity and other religions may emerge. Only in this way can there be a mutual understanding, full of challenge, correction, and enrichment, for both Christians and non-Christians.

“For even if Christ embodies the fullness of God’s self-revelation, the church’s understanding of this revelation remains imperfect, and its practice of it remains partial, at times even sinful.”

Here’s Grant Gallicho’s post from Commonweal’s blog (Grant writers for us sometimes and he’s an editor over at Commonweal).

I’ll keep you updated as the story develops.

All that, you know, colonialism and imperialism and world wars–that’s all done.  Europe, says London Review of Books, is the way to go.

Not to be outdone, the futurologist Jeremy Rifkin – American by birth, but by any standards an honorary European: indeed a personal adviser to Romano Prodi when he was president of the European Commission – has offered his guide to The European Dream.3 Seeking ‘harmony, not hegemony’, he tells us, the EU ‘has all the right markings to claim the moral high ground on the journey towards a third stage of human consciousness. Europeans have laid out a visionary road map to a new promised land, one dedicated to reaffirming the life instinct and the Earth’s indivisibility.’ After a lyrical survey of this route – typical staging-posts: ‘Government without a Centre’, ‘Romancing the Civil Society’, ‘A Second Enlightenment’ – Rifkin, warning us against cynicism, concludes: ‘These are tumultuous times. Much of the world is going dark, leaving many human beings without clear direction. The European Dream is a beacon of light in a troubled world. It beckons us to a new age of inclusivity, diversity, quality of life, deep play, sustainability, universal human rights, the rights of nature, and peace on Earth.’

I really do love this show.  So does Slate.  Watch it!  Watch it!  All episodes available online!

Naomi Klein is an incisive and wonderful writer, and she’s also a favorite of a good friend to Bustedhalo.com, Tom Beaudoin, a Santa Clara University professor most famous for his book, Virtual Faith: The Irreverent Spiritual Quest of Generation X.

Klein is a darling of the critical left and is, in many ways, the anti-Michael Moore.  While her ideology is clear, she backs herself up with hard evidence and she’s got too much integrity for rhetorical fallacies.

This article’s about the shocking of Iraq as a means of clearing ground for private industry.  She is a devastatingly effective writer.

How will that affect this darling of conservative Christians?  From the Pew Forum.

Find out more about Ramadan.

In First Things.  The piece is a bit like my article for Bustedhalo.

One need not find the novels to their taste. One can complain about Rowling’s style, etc. But the assertion that the books are spiritually dangerous or anti-Christian is, in my view, unfounded and, indeed, counterfactual.