Category Archives: Christianity

February 22, 2012

Contraception and the Culture War

For a week or so in early February religion was once again at the center of media attention (this time unrelated to the lingering issue of Mitt Romney’s Mormonism). Using powers given her by the “Obamacare” legislation, Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary … Continue reading

Posted in Christianity, Secularism | 4 Comments
February 15, 2012

Is Confucianism a Religion?

On February 5, 2012, the New York Times carried a story about a Confucian academy in South Korea. It is one of some 150 such academies (seawon) in the country. Their main program consists of retreats, especially for schoolchildren. The … Continue reading

Posted in Christianity, Confucianism, Secularism | 16 Comments
January 11, 2012

Counting Christian Noses

In December 2011 the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (Washington) issued A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Christian Population. Some of the data were developed in collaboration with the Center for the Study of … Continue reading

Posted in Christianity, Inter-faith Dialogue, Pentecostalism | 23 Comments
December 14, 2011

Do The Three Abrahamic Faiths Worship The Same God?

It has become common now to speak of Judaism, Christianity and Islam as constituting three forms of “Abrahamic faith”. I have not been able to nail down just when this term was first used. (To use another term of current … Continue reading

Posted in Christianity, Islam, Judaism | 29 Comments
December 7, 2011

Southern Baptists Go Swimming in Lake Geneva

Some years ago a sizable number of American Evangelicals, perhaps in search of a more colorful version of Christianity, became Eastern Orthodox as a group. For some reason they chose to join the American branch of the Patriarchate of Antioch, … Continue reading

Posted in Christianity, Evangelicalism, Protestantism | 47 Comments
November 16, 2011

What Would Jesus Do?

As was widely reported by the media both in Britain and in this country, on October 15, 2011 Occupy London (the British imitator of the Occupy Wall Street movement) put up a protest camp in front of St. Paul’s Cathedral. … Continue reading

Posted in Christianity, Politics, Protestantism | 21 Comments
October 26, 2011

Christians and the Death Penalty

The cross has been the foremost symbol of Christianity for so long that we easily forget that it was an instrument of execution. Subjects of the Roman Empire at the time could hardly forget this, and the spectacle of a … Continue reading

Posted in Catholicism, Christianity, United States | 17 Comments
October 12, 2011

A Long String of Atrocities

A few days ago I was with a group of people when the topic of the Armenian genocide came up. The immediate reason for the topic to come up was the action of several European legislatures to declare that the … Continue reading

Posted in Christianity, Culture, Judaism | 11 Comments
September 12, 2011

Christian Voices on the Anniversary of September 11

There are three Christian journals that I peruse regularly—National Catholic Reporter (liberal Catholic), Christian Century (liberal Protestant) and Christianity Today (conservative Protestant). The adjective “liberal” in the first two journals refers both to their theological and political orientation; Christianity Today … Continue reading

Posted in Christianity, Military | 7 Comments
August 24, 2011

Is the Only True Church in Milwaukee?

In its issue of August 9, 2011, The Christian Century reported that Michele Bachmann, the Republican presidential candidate, had resigned from her church six days before launching her campaign. (This was also reported in some secular media.) The church in … Continue reading

Posted in Catholicism, Christianity, Lutheranism, Protestantism | 16 Comments