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Monthly Archives: August 2010
Poland Between Rome and Brussels
During much of its modern history Poland was a ball of contention between three imperial centers: Moscow, Vienna and Berlin. Vienna has long lost any imperial aspirations, Moscow would like to assert them again, and Berlin tries hard to hide them … Continue reading
Posted in Europe, Secularism
Is “Proselytizing” a Bad Word?
In its July 2010 issue, Christianity Today, the masthead publication of Evangelical Protestantism, reported the merger of two Evangelical organizations engaged in missionary work in the Muslim world: Pioneers USA and Arab World Ministries. These have a combined total of 2,300 … Continue reading
American National Interest and the Stoning of Women
On August 17, 2010 The New York Times carried on its first page a story about the stoning for adultery of a couple in a Taliban-controlled area of Afghanistan. (The Times deserves credit—the story hardly supports the anti-war position of … Continue reading
Posted in Afghanistan, Morality
Evangelicals: Sentenced to Lower Case
I suppose that producing a blog makes little sense unless it provides an opportunity to vent personal complaints about the universe and peeves concerning the behavior of people. My list of complaints about the universe gets longer every morning after … Continue reading
Posted in Christianity
Counting Christians in China
We know that Christianity has been growing remarkably in recent decades—in China there is talk of “Christianity fever”. We don’t know just how many Christians there are in China at present. The reason for this is simple. Christian churches in … Continue reading
Posted in Christianity, Culture, Religion
The Return of the Village Atheist
Over the last few years there was published a flurry of books marketed and discussed under the heading of “The New Atheism”. The best-known authors are Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens. While differing in emphasis and style, their books … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Secularism
Veiled Women and Naked Monks
On July 13 the lower house of the French parliament banned all forms of headgear that hide the face, with the rationale that such garments are “contrary to the values of the French Republic”. One politician put it more poetically: … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Religion, Secularism
“A Sad Breeze through the Olive Trees”
On July 28 the regional legislature of Catalonia passed a law banning bullfights. The official rationale was that bullfights involve cruelty to animals. This is undoubtedly true (though I, for one, am not sure that killing in an abattoir is … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Secularism
Wisdom from the East
The prevailing view of the cultural aspect of globalization is that of a massive process of Westernization. It is producing a synthetic international culture. On the popular level it is sometimes called “McWorld” (a term felicitously coined by Benjamin Barber), … Continue reading
Posted in Religion, Secularism
