Snark Wars

The latest volley in the war of words waged by cultured despisers of Christianity was fired on Christmas Day. Celebrity astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, host of the television series Cosmos, bushwhacked Christians with this tweeted broadside: On this day long ago, a child was born who, by age 30, would transform the world. Happy Birthday Isaac Newton b. Dec 25, 1642. Not content with just one shot, Tyson let fly again. Merry Christmas to all, he tweeted. A Pagan holiday (BC) becomes a Religious holiday (AD). Which then becomes a Shopping holiday (USA). Then, the coup de grace. QUESTION: This year, what do all the world\u27s Muslims and Jews call December 25th? ANSWER: Thursday. [excerpt

Outbreak in Washington, DC: The 1857 Mystery of the National Hotel Disease

The National was once the grandest hotel in the capital. In 1857, it twice hosted President-elect James Buchanan and his advisors, and on both occasions, most of the party was quickly stricken by an acute illness. Over the course of several months, hundreds fell ill, and over thirty died from what became known as the National Hotel disease. Buchanan barely recovered enough to give his inauguration speech. Rumors ran rampant across the city and the nation. Some claimed that the illness was born of a sewage “effluvia,” while others darkly speculated about an assassination attempt by either abolitionists or southern slaveowners intent on war. Author Kerry Walters investigates the mysteries of the National Hotel disease. [From the publisher]https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/books/1064/thumbnail.jp

Rachel Weeping: A Christian Pacifist Reluctantly Endorses Military Strikes Against ISIS

I\u27m haunted these days by a scene from Matthew\u27s Gospel. Herod, learning that an infant has been born in Bethlehem who will become King of the Jews, orders the slaughter of the town\u27s male children two years old and under. Matthew captures the deed\u27s mind-numbing horror by imagining that Rachel, one of the traditional Hebrew matriarchs, weeps and laments and refuses to be comforted, because her children are no more. How, I ask myself, would Jesus\u27s followers have acted could they\u27ve been in Bethlehem on that frenzied day? Would they have remained silent? Would they have shielded the infants with their own bodies, buying the victims a few more seconds of life? Or would they have picked up any makeshift weapon they could find to protect the innocents from cruel death? [excerpt

Faith Matters: Reflections on the Christian Life

In a day in which Christians too often reduce faith to mere sentimentality and atheists decry it as superstitious nonsense, Fr. Kerry Walters offers a series of reflections intended to show that, indeed, faith matters. Drawn from his popular weekly newspaper column “Faith Matters,” these short meditations explore Christian faith from the perspectives of doctrine, spirituality, ethics, politics, art and science, the saints, and the holy seasons that mark the Christian year and set the rhythm of Christian living.https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/books/1155/thumbnail.jp

Orange Is the New Golgotha

The Roman soldiers jeered at Jesus, called him towelhead and sand monkey, ripped off his garments and clad him in an orange jumpsuit. Then they pulled a black sack over his head and led him to an interrogation cell, where CIA operatives awaited him. They shackled Jesus\u27s wrists and strung him up so that he dangled from the ceiling. One of them questioned him, and when his responses weren\u27t to their liking, the other beat him. [excerpt

The Passion of the Infant Christ: Critical Edition

Although forgotten until quite recently, Caryll Houselander, who died in 1954, was a sensitive and profound English Roman Catholic writer on Christian spirituality. In this critical edition of her 1949 book The Passion of the Infant Christ, Houselander argues that the physical world is an inscaped revelation of the mind of the Creator. Every concrete object and every temporal event mirrors the eternal, just as the circumstances surrounding the birth of Jesus mirror the circumstances surrounding his death and resurrection. Editor Kerry Walters discusses both Houselander\u27s life and the primary themes of The Passion of the Infant Christ in his introduction to this critical edition of one of Houselander\u27s most insightful books.https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/books/1117/thumbnail.jp

Explosion on the Potomac: The 1844 Calamity Aboard the USS Princeton

In 1844, the USS Princeton was the most technologically sophisticated warship in the world. Its captain, Robert Stockton, and President John Tyler were both zealous expansionists, and they hoped that it would be the forerunner in a formidable steam-powered fleet. On a Potomac cruise intended to impress power brokers, the ship\u27s main gun--the Peacemaker--exploded as the vessel neared Mount Vernon. Eight died horribly, while twenty others were injured. Two of Tyler\u27s most important cabinet members were instantly lost, and the president himself had a near miss--making it the worst physical disaster to befall a presidential administration. The tragedy set off an unpredictable wave of events that cost Tyler a second term, nearly scuttled plans to add Texas to the Union and stirred up sectional rancor that drove the nation closer to civil war. [From the publisher]https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/books/1033/thumbnail.jp

The American Deists

Challenging carvedinstone tenets of Christianity, deism began sprouting in colonial America in the early eighteenth century, was flourishing nicely by the American Revolution, and for all intents and purposes was dead by 1811. Despite its hasty demise, deism left a theological legacy. Christian sensibility would never be quite the same.Bringing together the works of six major American deists—Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Ethan Allen, Thomas Paine, Elihu Palmer, and Philip Frenau—an dthe Frechman Comte de Volney, whose writings greatly influenced the American deists, Kerry Walters has created the fullest analysis yet of deism and rational religion in colonial and early America. In addition to presenting a chronological collection of several works by each author, he provides a description of deism’s historical roots, its major themes, its social and political implications, and the reasons for its eventual demise as a movement.Essential readings from the three major deistic periodicals of the period—Temple of Reason, Prospect, and the Theophilanthropist—also are included in the volume. This is the first time they have been reprinted since their original publication.American deism is more than merely an antiquated philosophical position possessing only historical interest, Walters contends. Its search for a religion based upon the ideals of reason, nature, and humanitarianism, rather than the blind faith, scriptural inerrancy, and miracles preached by Christian churches at the time, continues to offer insight of real significance

Blessed Peacemakers: 365 Extraordinary People Who Changed the World

All of us yearn for a peaceable and just world, but some roll up their sleeves and set to work to make the dream real. Blessed Peacemakers celebrates 365 of them, one for each day of the year.Their stories are richly diverse. They share a commitment to peace and justice, but the various contexts in which they work make each of their stories uniquely instructive. The peacemakers include women, men, and children from across the globe, spanning some twenty-five hundred years. Many are persons of faith, but some are totally secular. Some are well known, while others will be excitingly new. They are human rights and antiwar activists, scientists and artists, educators and scholars, songwriters and poets, film directors and authors, diplomats and economists, environmentalists and mystics, prophets and policymakers. Some are unlettered, but all are wise. A few died in the service of the dream. All sacrificed for it.The world is a better place for the presence of blessed peacemakers. Their inspiring stories embolden readers to join them in nonviolent resistance to injustice and the creative pursuit of peace. [From the publisher]https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/books/1045/thumbnail.jp