Have We Evolved to Be Religious?
We humans have many varieties of religious experience. One of the most common is self-transcendence — a feeling becoming part of something larger, grander and nobler. Most people experience this at...
View ArticleShould We Bring Heaven Down to Earth?
As the world’s Christians prepare to commemorate the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, a debate over heaven is not as sexy or politically charged as other familiar battles in the American...
View ArticleThe Lesson of the ‘Jesus Is Not a Homophobe’ T-Shirt
Good news for Ohio’s gay and lesbian students: You can be openly gay once a year now that Wayne Local School District officials have granted a small concession, after a little nudge from a lawsuit, and...
View ArticleAre We Sliding Backward on Teaching Evolution?
Tennessee was the center of the national debate when it prosecuted John Thomas Scopes for the crime of teaching evolution. Now, 87 years after the Scopes “monkey trial,” Tennessee is once again a...
View ArticleHow Faith and Health Go Hand in Hand
Rick Warren changed my world view within an hour of my meeting him. We were speaking in earnest about the work he is doing to deliver basic health services in Sub-Saharan Africa. I was impressed by his...
View ArticleThe Catholic Contraction
If you want some perspective on just how benighted the Roman Catholic Church looks today on the subject of women, consider Hildegard of Bingen. Hildegard was a German Benedictine nun in the 12th...
View ArticleWhy We’re Still Catholics
Before this month, there was just one Bill telling me to leave the Roman Catholic Church. That was Bill Donohue, the dyspeptic president of the conservative Catholic League. Donohue dislikes my...
View ArticleSorry, Rome, U.S. Catholics Are More like Melinda Gates
Conservative Roman Catholics can handle it when non-Catholics oppose Vatican doctrine. But when other Catholics publicly disagree with church dogma and still have the audacity to call themselves...
View ArticleGod and Gays
There is something by now familiar, even reassuring, about what happens in my church every third summer. I am an Episcopalian, and I can reliably look forward to popular news coverage of the church’s...
View ArticleTake Hate off the Plate
Recently, Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy had some unkind things to say about gay families, and a lot of people (present company included) didn’t care for his comments one bit. That shouldn’t surprise you:...
View ArticleIs Paul Ryan’s Budget ‘Un-Christian’?
Americans often tell pollsters they yearn for a return to the Christian principles on which the U.S. was founded. If so, they should take a closer look at the Mitt Romney–Paul Ryan ticket. Jesus’...
View ArticleDon’t Let Paul Ryan Become a Religious Lightning Rod
The Roman Catholic Church has a reputation for clubbiness. (A Protestant arrives in heaven and asks St. Peter if he can visit some of his old Catholic friends. “Best if you didn’t,” Peter tells him....
View ArticleWhy Mother Teresa Still Matters
How do secular people remember a saint? As Mother Teresa‘s birthday on August 26th and the anniversary of her death on September 5th approach, I found myself thinking about this. I tried to imagine...
View ArticleWhy I’m a One-Issue Voter
I have never voted in a Presidential election on one issue alone, but I will this year. We all know there are crucial economic and social issues. If you are out of a job, what could be more pressing?...
View ArticleJesus’ Wife Matters a Lot — and Not at All
The Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests — a breakaway group founded in 2002 — sent out an e-mail yesterday announcing that its bishops will ordain six new female clerics next month. (The howl...
View ArticleIs This The Mormon Moment?
According to his memoirs, Richard Nixon believed that he lost the 1960 election because his opponent, John F. Kennedy, was a Roman Catholic. The Kennedy machine managed to “turn the election partially...
View ArticleHow Mitt Romney’s Faith Could Help Him Win
For Mormons, America is a very special place indeed. It’s central to the story of their faith; it was home to the Garden of Eden and will be the site of the Second Coming of Jesus. The notion of...
View ArticleEmpty Pews: Everyone Is Misreading the New Numbers of Religiously ‘Unaffiliated’
Earlier this week, while men in miters hunkered down in Rome for the start of a bishops synod on how to make the Roman Catholic Church more relevant to the 21st Century—which coincides with the 50th...
View ArticleThe Decline of the Wasp President
The New York Times headline was straightforward: “Study Finds That Percentage of Protestant Americans Is Declining.” We knew this was coming; trend lines have been moving in that direction for years....
View ArticlePulpit Freedom: Should Churches Endorse Political Candidates?
On Sunday Oct. 7, about 1,500 pastors of various faiths engaged in an organized act of civil disobedience: they endorsed political candidates from the pulpit, and many will continue to do so until...
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