Dusty Gates

About Dusty Gates

Dusty currently serves as the director of adult education at the Spiritual Life Center for the Catholic Diocese of Wichita, Kansas, and as an adjunct professor of theology at Newman University in Wichita, Kansas, where he resides with his wife and two children.

The Gift of Law and the Law of Gift

“I can’t understand why your Church makes you live that way,” a friend of mine once said to me, “it’s just not natural!” I fear that many, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, have a similar misunderstanding about nature, law, and the foundati … [Read more...]

Not Guilty

The Final Scapegoat and the Easter Verdict

Sacrifice has been bound up with biblical religion since the earliest, “pre-historical” chapters of Genesis. Genesis chapters 2 and 3 can be read as one continuous Sabbath day following the Seventh day of rest from Genesis 1, on which Adam a … [Read more...]

Sacrifice, Substitution, and Suffering

Sacrifice is troublesome for us fallen humans. It is not only the inconvenience or effort that troubles us so much, because we are sometimes willing to be inconvenienced or troubled for good reason; that is, a reason that serves our own … [Read more...]

The Holy Cross: A real life “Mockingjay” for Catholics

To me, the idea that ties the religious significance of this story together best is the “mockingjay.”  I find in the image of the mockingjay a clear and resounding symbol of the Cross of Jesus Christ.    The popular trilogy of novels turne … [Read more...]