Religion
Sometimes historians skip a step or two by juxtaposing their own opinions on historical facts and then applying the “lesson” to the current day with little explanation. Such is the case with Champlain College Distinguished Scholar in History Willard Sterne Randal’s musing on the history of religion in campaigns: No presidential election since 1800 has…
Wielding their new cost-free weapon, radicals continue to attack Christians in Canada: Catholic Insight, a Canadian magazine known for its fidelity to Church teachings, has been targeted by the Canadian Human Rights Commission for publishing articles deemed offensive to homosexuals. The commission has been investigating the Toronto-based publication since homosexual activist Rob Wells, a member…
One hopes that most devout Christians — Catholics especially — have a wave of initial suspicion upon hearing such admonitions as “if we only care about heaven, then we’ve lost Jesus’ sense of urgency about loving your neighbor. We’re all kin, so my neighbor is also the polar bear and the bumblebee.” It is wise,…
Michael Novak counts the ways. It seems to me that he misses one category of atheists, or at least that he ought to have teased it out from the six that he lists: those who’ve made science and rationality (more correctly: rationalism) their god. He’s got good advice for believers, though: Recall that in your…
Accusations have been made — recently and in the past — that I hold the social views that I do out of fear and hate. “Why do you fear sex?” “Why do you hate homosexuals?” “Why are you afraid of progress?” If not for the realization that these are clichés that have more to do…
I’ve been finding something frustrating with local Christian leaders, of late. Consider part of the Gospel reading from this past Sunday’s Catholic Mass readings: Jesus said to them in reply, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead…
The Corner provides excerpts from Mitt Romney’s speech today, which suggest it will focus on the broader strategic question of what role religion should play in the American public square instead of the granularity of Mormon theology: There are some who may feel that religion is not a matter to be seriously considered in the…
There have a flurry of books in recent months on atheism. Writing about them in The City Journal, Theodore Dalrymple – a non-believer himself – discusses What the New Atheists Don’t See: To regret religion is to regret Western civilization: …Lying not far beneath the surface of all the neo-atheist books is the kind of…
Not being a connoisseur of biographies, I’m finding G. Wayne Miller’s series on Roman Catholic Bishop of Providence Thomas Tobin more interesting than I expected. One result has been a new resolve to pay closer attention, and perhaps submit writing, to the diocesan newspaper, Rhode Island Catholic. That being the case, I’m not sure what…
Jonah Goldberg has opened up the topic of ensoulment with respect to abortion, and an email that he published concerning the Christian view doesn’t take its conclusions quite far enough to be entirely relevant to his broader stance on abortion: What Christianity actually teaches is that man—and man alone—is a psychosomatic entity consisting of a…