Religion
The lecture on Cardinal John Henry Newman’s Grammar of Assent, by Duke Divinity School Professor Paul Griffiths, reminded me what I miss about college. To think of such high and fundamental reasoning being a subject of everyday contemplation and discussion! (We strive for some small taste of that, on Anchor Rising, but it’s just not…
As with last year, Rev. George Rutler — pastor of the Church of Our Savior in New York City and well-known author — gave the opening speech of the Portsmouth Institute’s annual conference, although this year, his wasn’t a lone Thursday speech, limiting his audience, but a fully attended Friday morning affirmation of anticipation. Introducing…
It’s hard to believe that it’s been a full year since I attended and covered the first annual conference of the Portsmouth Institute of the Portsmouth Abbey School in (you guessed it) Portsmouth, Rhode Island. I’ll admit that, as much as I’ve looked forward to this event, the disruption of my habits and quotidian obligations…
David Hart is, above all, disappointed at the recent wave of “New Atheists” — at their superficiality and intellectual laziness, at the way (in essence) they present themselves as petulant adolescents still impressed with the fact that God does not strike them dead when they turn mom’s crucifix upside down. Hart mainly wishes for some…
So, the Mojave Desert cross honoring American servicemen and -women has been stolen: A cross erected on a remote Mojave Desert outcropping to honor American war dead has been stolen less than two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed it to remain standing while a legal battle continued over its presence on federal land.…
My Rhode Island Catholic column for April takes up the interaction of Jesus and Pilate, with its lessons about power: The striking thing, if Jesus told Pilate to label Him as he did, is that Caesar’s representatives clearly had the power to kill the corporeal King of the Jews. Moreover, the fact that Jesus did…
Apparently, in fields that debate such things, there’s been an attempt to apply economic principles to explain the ebbs and flows of attendance in different churches. John Lamont does some difference splitting and paints a persuasive picture (subscription required). Because “the rewards of religion are supernatural and, therefore, unseen,” the healthy religion, he explains, requires…
From college-level religious history courses to tracts on same-sex marriage, one hears of St. Paul as the strict counterpoint to Jesus’ universal acceptance. I’d argue that the image of Jesus as the undemanding forgiver is fundamentally flawed, but Sarah Ruden — here, as summarized in a review of her book by John Wilson — puts…
By way of follow-up on an issue that I’ve mentioned, before, the Supreme Court has ruled that a plain cross on public land in the middle of the desert does not constitute an establishment of religion: By a 5-4 vote, the justices reversed lower courts in California that ordered the U.S. Park Service to remove…
In their capacity as literature, the texts of the Bible aren’t exclusively of religious concern. (That’s hardly an original or incendiary suggestion.) So perhaps you’ll find this reading of Cain and Abel — found in a review by Shalom Carmy of a book by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks — worth a few moments of sunny…