Despite the Roman Catholic Church’s official opposition to abortion and embryonic stem-cell research, a Gallup analysis finds almost no difference between rank-and-file American Catholics and American non-Catholics in terms of finding the two issues morally acceptable.
Ehrman’s new book, “Jesus, Interrupted,” will not lead many evangelicals and conservative Christians to invite him to talk to their Bible study groups. Picking up where “Misquoting Jesus” let off, it goes beyond the Bible’s textual problems to look at deeper doctrinal inconsistencies and contradictions.
About 640,000 palm fronds, ordered through the University of Minnesota’s eco-palms program, will be distributed this Sunday in some 2,500 congregations. That’s a jump from 360,000 eco-palms that were shipped to U.S. congregations last year and from just 5,000 palms in 2005.
Scientists report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week that they pinpointed where in the brain different types of religious thoughts originate. According to the study, religious musings occur in a variety of regions, confirming previous research showing there is no single “God Spot” in the brain from whence all spiritual thoughts emerge
If we think the 19th century (for example) was full of great hymn-writers, it’s just because our hymnbooks today include only the highlights from that entire century. And let’s face it, even the highlights are usually pretty atrocious. Hymns typically suffer either from painfully bad lyrics or from a trivial, no-less-painful sentimentality.
It’s often suggested that religious charities must be self-interested. Either they proselytise, or they discriminate to the advantage of believers, or both. It’s also suggested that the people who give to them are really being selfish, because they want to put themselves right with God, and so to benefit from their actions, rather than being truly altruistic. Are these accusations fair? And are secular charities, or state provision, morally superior?
Andrew J. Bacevich, in his introduction to the republished edition of Reinhold Niebuhr’s The Irony of American History, calls it “the most important book ever written on US foreign policy.” Certainly it would be hard to think of another book from the 1950s that retains, nearly sixty years later, both its compulsive readability and so much of its relevance. The elegance, strength, and charm of Niebuhr’s writing invite quotation at every turn. And behind the prophetic style lie wisdom, Christian charity, and a profound understanding of both history and the ways of human beings, individually as well as in groups
Christians are annually asked to refrain from eating meat on Fridays and to pray more regularly during Lent, but the church has apparently gotten hip to the hold that technology has on its brethren. The diocese of Modena-Nonantola in Italy in particular is calling for text-messaging-free Fridays as a way for the faithful to at least temporarily rid themselves of reminders of “material wealth,” but the church is also calling for such digital abstinence in the name of human rights.
Suppose you see a small child drowning in a pond. If you save him you will ruin your expensive suit. Do you save him? Of course you do. Now think about the world’s extremely poor children who are going to die unless you give enough to a charity designed to help them, such as Unicef or Oxfam. Do you save them? Not often enough.
Should it be of concern to Christians that Darwin was never more than a nominal believer? Only if, rejecting universalism, you are concerned about the destiny of his immortal soul. Otherwise – well, are you concerned whether your surgeon, mechanic, or hair stylist goes to church? Of course not. Your only concern is that she wields a scalpel, wrench, or scissors with know-how and dexterity.