All posts filed under: Centrists

Twitter and the collapse of coalitions.

January 18, 2020
by Nicholas Knisely
Centrists / Futurism / Reconciliation / SOSc / Web/Tech

Walter Ong, a Jesuit who studied linguistics was fascinated by the difference between oral and literary cultures. Oral cultures value one sort of communication structure and literate ones another. (The difference is explained in The Atlantic article by Robinson Meyer linked below.) Twitter (and to a similar degree Facebook, and I guess in a way even Instagram and Snapchat) represents an intersection between the oral and literary communication paradigms. Meyer writes: Before Ong died in […]

Put it in a special drawer…

January 24, 2012
by Nicholas Knisely
Centrists / Current Affairs / Religion

Yesterday there were a series of rallies at the State Capital. The Latino community joined by the Democratic caucus held a rally complaining about SB1070 and the way it has harmed the state and "poisoned" relationships. The Republicans promised to resist all efforts toward repeal. The new State Senate President is quoted as saying to effect, "Any bill that I receive to repeal SB1070 is going into a special drawer in my desk. <em>And it's not coming out</em>." In other words, the minority can expect no hearing of their concerns by the legislature. They should not expect the government to act in their interest. It will only act in the interest of the majority.

The need to build bridges

June 28, 2011
by Nicholas Knisely
Centrists / Current Affairs / Religion

Years and years ago, I was at a clergy retreat at the Antiochian Orthodox Church Center in Western PA. It was the annual clergy retreat for the Diocese of Pittsburgh, and it was back in the days that Alden Hathaway was the bishop. There was a growing tension in the diocese, especially between the clergy. There were at least three camps within the clergy, probably more depending how you drew boundaries. I can’t remember if […]

Sometimes clarity is impossible

November 29, 2010
by Nicholas Knisely
Centrists / Religion / Science

I remember having a conversation years ago with an Episcopal priest who is now part of ACNA. It was just after the action of General Convention in 2003 to consent to the election of Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire. He and I chanced to meet each other as we made our way out of chapel one morning. I asked him what he was thinking about what was going on. “Now we have clarity” […]

“A Radical Middle Way Beyond “Us and Them”

October 18, 2010
by Nicholas Knisely
Centrists / Religion

Ken Howard writing about his new book Paradoxy: Creating Christian Community Beyond Us and Them has lays out the details of his thinking regarding the finding of an alternative way through the conflict that has been raging for decades within the Church. In a blog post this afternoon he points toward a reordering of the Church in a way that we’re not focused on maintaining the bounds between them and us, but rather finding a […]

“The middle is always evil”

February 23, 2010
by Nicholas Knisely
Centrists / Religion

There’s been a resurgence of interest in the objectivist moral philosophy of Ayn Rand. If you listen carefully you can hear much of her thought in the speeches of the extreme libertarians. I’ve wondered for years whether or not Rand is Rush Limbaugh’s primary philosophical influence. There’s an article on Rand and her thinking in the Globe and Mail today. In the middle of the article, the author points out the shadow side of Rand’s […]

Stanley Hauerwas on the Reformation

November 1, 2009
by Nicholas Knisely
Centrists / Religion

Stanley Hauerwas was asked to preach on Reformation Sunday (what some Lutherans and many other protestants call the Sunday of All Saints). Prof. Hauerwas, as you might expect knowing his thinking, not going to choose the obvious path of lauding the reformers who managed to split western Christendom: “I realize that this perspective on Reformation Sunday is not the usual perspective. The usual perspective is to tell us what a wonderful thing happened at the […]

The BCP as Anglican Covenant

October 30, 2009
by Nicholas Knisely
Centrists / Religion

People have always asked Episcopalians to describe what sort of Episcopalians they are. That’s because there’s a very diverse lot of us under the Episcopal Church’s umbrella. Gosh, there’s a very diverse group of us under my own Cathedral congregation’s umbrella. There are High Church Anglicans, Ultramontane Anglicans, Calvinists, Low Church, Charismatic, Broad Church, Deists, Theists and cultural Anglicans. To name just a few. Lately thanks to the writing of folks like Christopher Evans and […]