Seniors and Sex

There’s a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine on the sex lives of senior citizens. Abstract. News report summarizing the research.

The Perils of Apologetics

I find much of contemporary apologetics embarrassing. It too often quickly goes from proof-texting to name-calling. I know Steve Ray to be a nice guy, but here and here something happened. Read his comments (and the lengthy comment he posted each time he deleted someone’s comments) and this lengthier response. Steve’s normally a genial apologist; his videos are well-done, and show him as a nice guy you’d want for a neighbor. But something happened here.

His argument defending the Assumption and Queenship of Mary is basically this: Catholics accept both Scripture and Tradition as authoritative; Catholics know of the Assumption and Queenship through Tradition; Catholics can then look back at Scripture and find examples that Catholics can see as types of the role they ascribe to Mary (e.g., the Queen Mother of ancient Judah). A Catholic apologist needs to realize that Protestants aren’t going to buy this, since they don’t accept the first premise. And usually Steve would do this.

But when you get caught up in the heat of battle, it is easy to lose perspective, and one’s cool. It happens to Catholics and Protestants. Can we all learn to do apologetics without apology …?

On one of the questions raised by Ray, the “Queen Mother” in Israel, is it possible for Protestants and Catholics to have a civil discussion? I think so. Consider this article: Niels-Erik Andreasen, “The Role of the Queen Mother in Israelite Society,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 45 (1983) 179-94. It’s a Catholic journal … and the author is a leading Seventh-day Adventist theologian, currently serving as president of Andrews University.

Now, is Niels-Erik going to run off and accept the Assumption and Queenship of Mary? No, because he doesn’t accept the authoritative nature of Catholic tradition. That’s the key here. When I accepted the Catholic tradition as authoritative, I accepted (and defended) many things taught solely by that tradition. When my confidence in it fell, I needed a more solid foundation.

Since Catholics and Protestants both accept Scripture as divinely inspired and authoritative, Catholics really shouldn’t be offended when Protestants say, “Don’t just appeal to your own private authority; base your argument on that authority we share.”

The Class of 2011

Beloit College has released its latest annual “Mindset List,” profiling entering college freshman. Here’s a selection …

BELOIT COLLEGE’S MINDSET LIST^® FOR THE CLASS OF 2011

Most of the students entering College this fall, members of the Class of 2011, were born in 1989. For them, Alvin Ailey, Andrei Sakharov, Huey Newton, Emperor Hirohito, Ted Bundy, Abbie Hoffman, and Don the Beachcomber have always been dead.

• What Berlin wall?
• Humvees, minus the artillery, have always been available to the public.
• Rush Limbaugh and the “Dittoheads” have always been lambasting liberals.
• Michael Moore has always been angry and funny.
• They may confuse the Keating Five with a rock group.
• They have grown up with bottled water.
• General Motors has always been working on an electric car.
• Nelson Mandela has always been free and a force in South Africa.
• Pete Rose has never played baseball.
• Rap music has always been mainstream.
• Russia has always had a multi-party political system.
• They were born the year Harvard Law Review Editor Barack Obama announced he might run for office some day.
• Eastern Airlines has never “earned their wings” in their lifetime.
• No one has ever been able to sit down comfortably to a meal of “liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.”
• Wal-Mart has always been a larger retailer than Sears and has always employed more workers than GM.
• Al Gore has always been running for president or thinking about it.
• U2 has always been more than a spy plane.
• They were introduced to Jack Nicholson as “The Joker.”
• Stadiums, rock tours and sporting events have always had corporate names.
• American rock groups have always appeared in Moscow.
• Fox has always been a major network.
• They drove their parents crazy with the Beavis and Butt-Head laugh.
• The “Blue Man Group” has always been everywhere.
• Women’s studies majors have always been offered on campus.
• Being a latchkey kid has never been a big deal.
• Thanks to MySpace and Facebook, autobiography can happen in real time.
• They learned about JFK from Oliver Stone and Malcolm X from Spike Lee.
• High definition television has always been available.
• Virtual reality has always been available when the real thing failed.
• China has always been more interested in making money than in reeducation.
• Tiananmen Square is a 2008 Olympics venue, not the scene of a massacre.
• The purchase of ivory has always been banned.
• The space program has never really caught their attention except in disasters.
• Jerry Springer has always been lowering the level of discourse on TV.
• They get much more information from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert than from the newspaper.
• They’re always texting 1 n other.
• They will encounter roughly equal numbers of female and male professors in the classroom.
• They never saw Johnny Carson live on television.
• Avatars have nothing to do with Hindu deities.
• Chavez has nothing to do with iceberg lettuce and everything to do with oil.
• Illinois has been trying to ban smoking since the year they were born.
• The World Wide Web has been an online tool since they were born.
• Burma has always been Myanmar.
• Dilbert has always been ridiculing cubicle culture.
• Food packaging has always included nutritional labeling.