Today's Finds

I happened upon a number of interesting sites today, including a few interesting YouTube videos, that I'd like to post.

1. The first is a video quoting from the Early Church Fathers. These fathers were quite clear about the nature and hierarchical structure of the true church. Although the sad divisions between Christians today can no longer be considered the fault of nearly anyone involved, all Christians, Protestants and Catholics alike, do well to take to heart the vision of the church the apostles passed on to their students, St. Ignatius, St. Iranaeus, and the like.



2. I discovered this video through one of my favorite RSS feeds, New Advent, which brought my attention to Francis Beckwith's new blog. His blog led me to his website, which I highly recommend exploring. Beckwith is one of the most recent notable converts to the Catholic church, notable because he was the 2006-2007 president of the Evangelical Theological Society. On Beckwith's site, a number of links are worth reading, including the endorsements, which feature comments from an honor roll of prominent Catholic and Protestant intellectuals. Other links, including an extended excerpt from his book, are also worth checking out. One thing is clear from Beckwith's account of his own conversion: he sees joining the Catholic Church as the culmination of everything good in his evanelical heritage.

3. Beckwith's site linked me to another interesting site, Be Doers of the Word, which describes "Evangelical Catholicism" in terms of a short summary and eight principles. These principles read a bit like the summaries of faith found on the websites of many Protestant denominations, and it is my hope that this bullet-point presentation of the ancient, historic faith resonates with the desire for a "simple faith" common to many evangelical Christians.

4. All of the above reminded me of what I believe to be the hands-down single best talk on Christian ecumenism that I have ever heard. The talk is by Peter Kreeft, philosopher at Boston College and convert to the Catholic faith, and can be found at his website. The talk itself can be downloaded from his website by clicking here. Since I plan to spend an entire later post commenting on the main points from his talk, I'll leave it to my readers to listen to the talk if they wish.

5. Returning to YouTube, I discovered two other interesting videos:





6. And finally, returning to New Advent, I found another link that contains stories related to St. Don Bosco and the gray dog that often came to protect him throughout his life and ministry. A little fun reading to finish off a day's poking around on the internet!

Praise be to God, now and forever!