SPIRITED THINKING SINCE 1888
David Mills

The Democrats that destroy culture
November 23, 2021
Working class Democrats become Republicans because that party seems to care about the same things they do
Why Evangelicals don’t like Saints
November 12, 2021
Those that don't venerate saints miss out on one of life's great joys.
Where is the language of sin?
October 22, 2021
The Church did not admit the embarrassment and shame her people suffered, and still suffer.
Catholics need the devil
October 10, 2021
We’ve always needed St Michael’s help against “the wickedness and snares of the Devil” as much as we do today
Why Lutherans won’t become Catholics
September 29, 2021
Lutherans believe Lutheranism is more Catholic than the Catholic Church.
On weaponising the Holy Cross
September 17, 2021
Whatever political side you’re on, you will have seen your Christian opponents try to out-Christian you. They will beat you with the Cross. 
You May Be a Glutton. Screwtape Knows How
September 06, 2021
It’s a half of this and a touch of that, a quarter of this and slightly less than a third of that. A young friend who works in a coffee shop showed me an online order with about fifteen ingredients, each very specific. The order wasn’t that unusual, nor the worst she had seen. Customers
Be the revolutionary Robespierre, Chesterton says, not the conservative Burke
July 14, 2021
Conservatives don’t celebrate Bastille Day, of which today is the 232nd anniversary. They lament the beginning of the French Revolution, which began with such hopes and ended in such terror. The great Catholic writer, beloved of conservatives Catholics, G. K. Chesterton, on the other hand, celebrated it and one of the men most responsible for
Why Men Leave Their Dying Wives
June 29, 2021
A disturbingly high percentage of men leave their wives when their wives become seriously or terminally ill. Few women leave their husbands when they get sick. The culture lets men do it when it doesn't let women. But cheery modern Christianity — and it's almost always cheery — encourages them as well. But the ones who don't leave point to a hopeful truth of marriage.
A (Needed) Guide to Reading G. K. Chesterton
June 14, 2021
People quote him all the time, but he’s not always that easy to read. G. K. Chesterton, who died 85 years ago today, was one of the greatest of Christianity’s popular writers in the last century. But while he offered forehead-slapping insight, he sometimes gave his readers head-scratching obscurity. I love Chesterton’s writing, but I
C. S. Lewis Doesn’t Recommend Christianity
May 31, 2021
C.S. Lewis said that Christianity didn't make him happy — not as happy as did a bottle of port. It's a great meme — because it reminds us we're mediocrities and most Christians actually want to hear that.
Old People Don’t Need to Have Sex
May 16, 2021
An elderly French peasant couple, June 1915. (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)   Catholic priests and theologians don’t always seem to understand sex. Many years ago, as a new Catholic, I was talking with a priest about the Catholic understanding of marriage. The crucial thing, he said, was that the husband finished in
The English team, he says, is the “enemy of truth, beauty, and goodness”
July 13, 2021
Yes, someone said that -- not a complete crank, either -- in an article for a third-tier conserative American publication that was essentially a rant, says David Mills, who took up his pen mainly because the author of the screed annoyed him. "The article's a rant by an ideologically marginal writer, writing in a marginal publication," but the author of the piece "does represent a large section of American conservatism, who think as he does."
Free the Latin Mass, for the good of the Church and the people who need it
July 06, 2021
Those who want the Latin Mass “only wish to be part of that ‘great orchestra’ of ‘unity in variety’ which, as Pope Francis said, reflects the true catholicity of the Church.” Many with leadership roles in the Church are keen to exclude them.
C. S. Lewis Would Have Approved of CRT
June 30, 2021
Tory Christian though he was, I think C. S. Lewis would have approved of Critical Race Theory, at least the way it understands human limitation and tries to get people to understand that they see the world a certain way, which blinds them to other ways. Lewis was a cold-blooded realist in the way he
What Anti-Masker Hypocrisy Teaches
April 22, 2021
People who you'd expect to be anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers turn out to be strongly pro-mask and vaccine — because they care for someone vulnerable. It's a teachable moment for them, but only if they see how their experience changes their politics.
The Guardian Columnist Without Religion Knows What He’s Missing
April 06, 2021
The Guardian's John Harris has no religion and regrets the loss of fellowship and shared meaning that religion provides the religious. His answer will not provide them. Only religion can do that.
When Catholic Puritans Ruin Lent
March 22, 2021
Some Catholics hate Lent, loathe Lent, because it was taught to them as a reason to hate themselves for being so bad.
Sometimes We Must Speak Ill of the Dead
March 03, 2021
Sometimes we need to speak ill of the dead. We may need to speak critically when the dead is a public figure whose memory his ideological allies use to promote their cause. When political people memorialize him in a way that establishes their favored political narrative. We must criticize to try to establish the truth. And as Catholics, we should be critical for another reason.
Criminal, Sociopathic, Satanic — and a Story We’ve Heard Before
February 16, 2021
Ravi Zacharias, who died in May of last year, was American Evangelicalism’s superstar apologist. The movement’s flagship magazine, Christianity Today, headlined their recent report on him, “Ravi Zacharias Hid Hundreds of Pictures of Women, Abuse During Massages, and a Rape Allegation.” The story is worse than that. Southern Baptist leader Russell Moore called it “a pattern
How Rhetorical Bullies Manipulate You
January 28, 2021
These people cheat. They don't want to argue with you, so they make you out to be the bad guy. They do it in two different but very common ways, both of which I experienced in this discussion. Almost anyone who argues a position will have suffered them too.
The Ecumenical Dog That Doesn’t Bark
January 23, 2021
It’s the ecumenical dog that doesn’t bark. We need him to bark, but he rarely does, and then he's quickly shushed. It’s the matter of conversion. When we pray for Christian unity, as we do this week, we pray not only for kindness and fellow-feeling and some very foggy idea of joining together in the future, after a gradual convergence somewhere in the middle. We pray for our separated brethren to give in.
‘Are Those Table Runners?’ Asked the Woman Who’d Lost Everything Just Before Christmas
December 21, 2020
She had her left leg on one of those little scooters people use when they’ve broken an ankle. She’d asked the clerk at St. Vincent de Paul to take a drip coffee maker out of the box. It was new, still in the wrapping, and cost about $2.00, maybe $3.00. Everything’s sold as is and
Katie at the bar
May 18, 2020
In this health emergency, every response has a downside: the only certainty is the human cost of what we do, or don’t.
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