As Passover of 2008 commences Saturday night, Mr. Weininger, along with Ian Chesir-Teran, is one of two gay rabbinical students at J.T.S., as the seminary is routinely known. Their presence has essentially, if not always easily, settled decades of roiling debate within the Conservative movement over homosexual members of the clergy.
During an election year in which immigration is sure to play a significant role, a film like The Visitor is utterly refreshing. Far from a heavy-handed, agit-prop polemic, this is a film that asks us simply to humanize the issue. Christians have long preached (but not always practiced) the importance of loving people, first and foremost—despite their race or culture or religion. The Visitor shows us just how lovely and healing this idea—in practice—can be.
In the usual telling of the tale, Joseph Ratzinger went from being a progressive reformer at the Second Vatican Council to being God’s reactionary Rottweiler as the Catholic Church’s chief doctrinal authority under John Paul II. That standard account misses the truth about the Bavarian theologian who has become Pope Benedict XVI.
The debate over the proper relationship between religion and politics often focuses on whether religious influence in the public square is a good thing or bad thing for the nation. Evangelical Charles Marsh has written a new book, Wayward Christian Soldiers: Freeing the Gospel From Political Captivity that argues that undue political involvement has been bad for the faith.
The disciples were simple people. They were ordinary folks who worked for a living, paid bills, and had to fulfill all the mundane responsibilities of life. Some were married and had to take care of those relationships properly. A few certainly must have had children. They had all the ingredients for the recipe of ordinary, everyday people.