Category: Fleming

30

Reaching the Boiling Point

The change-over in the House was predicted by pundits from the day of Donald Trump’s election and therefore means very little.  Nonetheless, it does show that the American electorate–it is hardly possible to speak of Americans as “a people”–is not only divided by class and region and race but even segments that supported Trump two years ago failed him.  A cynic might say it is because America’s blue-collar class and Middle Americans in general are fat, stupid, and cowardly, and cynics are generally right.

2

Religio Philologi: The Gentile Church, B:

Ignatius warned against one of the perennial temptations—to impose Jewish customs on the Church: “It is absurd to profess Christ Jesus, and to Judaize.  For Christianity did not embrace Judaism, but Judaism Christianity, that so every tongue which believeth might be gathered together to God.” [Magnesians 10] Ignatius also warned against the poison of heretics who denied the reality of Christ’s passion. [Trallians 11]

2

Religio Philologi, The Gentile Church, A

Building The Gentile Church The early Church faced many grave crises and challenges, many of which can be summed up in one question: What kind of Church was it to be?    This question was first posed as a set of alternatives:  Was it  to be a Judeo-Christian Church limited to Jews, including Gentile converts to Judaism, or a Christian Church liberated from most of the peculiarities of Jewish law and custom?  But a second part of this question was whether this Church was to be a sect alienated from everyday life, like the Essenes, or an institution that existed in...

0

Trump and the Invasion

This is the basic fact of American life that conservatives refuse to understand.  The American ruling elite and the poor chumps who emulate them hate everything this country ever was.  For 40 years high school history teachers have regaled their classes with attacks on white men who enslaved negroes, oppressed women, massacred Indians, and insulted Jews.

4

Ask Mr. Autodidact: Diagram Latin Sentences?

A Question from a young Latin teacher. Henle asks that the students learn to diagram sentences in Latin. How helpful do you think this visual division of grammatical parts is for early and early-intermediate students? Much depends on the sort of students you have and what you expect to achieve.  Fr. Henle learned Latin before the Second World War, at a time when an analytical and structuralist approach was all the rage both in linguistics and in teaching English.  While the earliest method of diagramming goes back to the late 1840’s, the system really took off when it was visually...

0

Subsidized Illiteracy

This murder of English and logic is being practiced by academics throughout the 50 states.  It results in a professor, testifying in the Senate, who has to ask what the word “exculpatory” means.  It results in hundreds of thousands of self-styled intellectuals who ridicule a successful businessman-turned-President who has that particle of common sense they will never have