"Slots, video poker, and other gambling machines are often described as games, but Schüll’s description [in Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas] makes it clear how completely play is lacking from these terminals. Some machines allow gamblers to “autoplay”: they simply insert their money, press a single button, and let the machine spin… Read More
Adjusting to the Pass/No-Fail of Lent
"In truth, I wasn’t attracted to Fr. Schmemann’s prescriptions because I thought they stood a good chance of opening my whole day to Christ; I liked them because they were a little extreme and a lot emphatic. They felt like they might be enough. Trying to make sure I’ve done my duty by God is,… Read More
The Little Way of Terry Pratchett
"Reading [Terry Pratchett's Granny Weatherwax] as an atheist, it was the first time I’d seen a definition of sin that didn’t sound like, as Francis Spufford describes our modern use of the word in Unapologetic, a kind of “enjoyable naughtiness” that seemed mostly to do with sex or very expensive chocolates. But the kind of sin… Read More
Making Sense of Surveys on Religion
"Almost every discussion of “Catholics” as a single, undifferentiated group, is about as useful as articles on “Millennials.” Catholics who attend Mass regularly tend to give very different answers than those who were baptized but don’t particularly practice, but they are often all rolled up into one category. In fairness to the pollsters, it’s expensive… Read More
Both/And Philanthropy
"Jeremy Beer endorses local charities [in The Philanthropic Revolution: An Alternative History of American Charity], which can best further what he sees as the primary purpose of philanthropy, 'to increase opportunities for and strengthen the possibilities of authentic human communion.' In contrast, William MacAskill [in Doing Good Better] cuts ties with a charity focusing on… Read More
How To Strengthen Catholic Community
"Churches can include more 'Winter Christian' themes in homilies and hymns. Winter Christians are both intensely engaged with their faith, but also intensely stymied by spiritual dryness, doubts, a persistent sin, or some other difficulty. (They’re unlike 'Summer Christians' who are joyfully drawn to the faith, and completely unlike people who like or dislike the church,… Read More
The Catholic Census
"Any other Saturday night, I might technically be able to pray with a stranger, but I wouldn’t have known how to ask. The papal visit drew people out, and made it easy to disclose our faith to each other. It felt like a much more joyful and communal version of the annual Catholic Census that… Read More
Transactional Salvation
"Just like the children [in the marshmallow test], we’ve been asked to wait out a temptation in exchange for greater rewards in this life or the next (and we tend to cheat in fairly similar ways). But the experiment also exposes some reasons that this understanding of God’s rules may wind up leaving a bitter… Read More
Bridging the Word Gap
"Poorer children start falling behind the richer children in their age cohort long before they toddle off to their first day of school or sit down for their first standardized test. Before formal instruction begins, children learn from their parents. Poorer children fall into a 'word gap'—they hear and say fewer things per day than… Read More
On Prayer, Post-Conversion
"When I started adapting my life to make room for God, I took to scheduling in religion the way that I’d schedule a dinner with a friend, or a movie night. I made sure to leave discrete blocks of time to do religion, whether it was going to Daily Mass at the church down the… Read More