Skeptical Faith

Google Image A well-dressed, middle-aged woman, wearing no makeup, walks along a long wall toward the camera. The footage is in black-and-white. Sadness covers her face like a dew-fall of tragedy. She announces that she received disappointing results from a blood test. But she soon arrives at a corner, and as she turns it, the sadness disappears and a broad smile decorates her face. It’s the moment she discovers Eliquis! For those who haven’t seen it, this is a commercial for the anti-coagulant drug that, according to its Internet page, is often used to prevent blood clots. It’s a serious health condition and I don’t mean to downplay something that can help people, but I’m always skeptical – no, cynical - about these and other ads for medicines, which appear to be aired when “people of a certain age” are likely to be watching. My Grandfather's Scolding and Cursing My mother used to tell me about her father who, back in the day, scolded and cursed radio programs and announcers...

Google Image My wife, Amparo, and I recently taught a 16-hour course in Spanish for 30 students in the Hispanic Leadership program of the Diocese of Des Moines on the subject of Discipleship, the vocation of the followers of Jesus described in the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles. I first became aware of “discipleship” to describe serious Christians in the famous book, The Cost of Discipleship, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the young German Lutheran minister who was martyred by the Nazis in 1945. The paper jacket of my copy says Bonhoeffer “examines the serious implications of believing in Christ, the intensity of the struggle between the world and God in man’s deepest self whenever he takes upon himself true discipleship.” Heady stuff, then and now. Our course included use of a method for acquiring and living faith of which Bonhoeffer would surely approve: see, judge, act. Dedication to Social Activism The see-judge-act method was created by Cardinal Joseph Cardijn, who died in 1967...

Google Image This blog, Skeptical Faith, is not about politics. I know some of the issues I discuss seem to favor one party over the other, but it’s not because of loyalty to a political party. It’s because I believe some issues, which happen to sometimes align with a political party, are an important part of the search for God. They’re mostly social justice issues about which religion, particularly Catholicism - the religion I confess - cares deeply because the issues reflect gospel values expressed in such exhortations as the Beatitudes and parables such as the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son. Nonetheless, I follow politics and have been particularly struck during the past decade by the extent to which political campaigns show the stark failings of politics in particular and American society in general. It was particularly evident in the last two presidential campaigns, in 2016 and 2020. Excluded The campaigns of Donald Trump, the 2016 winner, and presidential contender Ber...

Google Image While looking for something on YouTube recently, I ran across a video of comedian George Carlin from, probably, 20 years ago. Carlin, who died in 2008 could be crude, but he was funny, and the video I watched was on “euphemisms.” For those who may have forgotten the term, an online dictionary defines euphemism as “ the substitution of a mild, indirect, or vague expression for one thought to be offensive, harsh, or blunt.” Most of us use euphemisms regularly, probably mostly unconsciously, but when I worked as a journalist, we were discouraged from using them. After all, their use clashes with the objective of “telling it like it is,” which, despite the skepticism of so many these days, is still an aim of good journalism. Disinformation In any case, Carlin gave funny examples, such as the evolution of the term “shell shock” in WWII to describe battlefield trauma – a simple, direct, descriptive term - to the term “operational exhaustion” in the Korean War (which he say...