-
Pastors Selling Health Reform
Let There Be Universal Coverage Pastors sell health reform to the faithful. What, I wondered, is a Christian minister doing on CNN pitching the president’s health-care plan? Last week the Rev. Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners, a Christian social-justice outfit, made a seven-minute appearance on Lou Dobbs’s show. Facing off against Tony Perkins of the
-
Raising kids in a same-sex union
First comes love, then comes marriage. Then come all the thorny issues that arise with raising kids in a religious tradition when that religious tradition doesn’t see you as married. When another state legalizes gay marriage, as New Hampshire did recently, civil-rights activists cheer. But practicalities are another matter, and same-sex couples—especially those who want
-
Is the Time for Christian Magazines Over
Another week, another failed magazine. But while the collapse of print media is hardly news, this demise is different. Today’s Christian Woman was founded in 1978 to reach evangelical Christian women who wanted a publication that reflected their values. They didn’t want the crass sex talk of Cosmopolitan. They didn’t want the mainstream relationship advice
-
Robert Wright’s The Evolution of God
A new book redefines the faith debate. The atheist writers Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens have presented us with a choice: either you don’t believe in God or you’re a dope. “It is perfectly absurd for religious moderates to suggest that a rational human being can believe in God, simply because that belief
-
To Solve Abortion Start Talking About Sex
When President Barack Obama talks about finding common ground on abortion, as he did during his commencement address at Notre Dame over the weekend, he’s not really talking about abortion at all. The president is pro-choice, which means that he believes that women should have access to legal abortions and that Roe v. Wade should
-
Public Relations for the Pope
I say this with respect: Pope Benedict XVI has a public-relations problem. You need only remember the 2000 visit of John Paul II to Jerusalem—which earned wall-to-wall cable coverage and produced the unforgettable image of the frail pope praying by the Western Wall—to know it’s true. Pope Benedict, by contrast, visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust
-
New Age Apocalypse 2012
2012: A Y2K for the New Age ‘Around … 2012, a large chapter of human history will be coming to an end, and a new phase of human growth will commence.’ Scholars rarely love popularizers, and nowhere is this enmity more evident than in the battle over 2012—a date which, depending on your view, will
-
The Bible for iPhones and Kindles
New ways to download the Good Book. Like so many Christians, Kevin McNeese carries his bible to church on Sundays. He “pops it open,” he says, and follows along as the pastor reads that week’s chapter and verse from the pulpit. For fun, McNeese reads additional, sometimes extensive, Bible commentary. At the conclusion of the
-
Huston Smith’s Wonderful Life
The author of ‘The World’s Religions’ looks back on 90 years of prayer, yoga and dropping acid. Huston Smith is doing publicity for his 14th book, though at nearly 90 he is debilitated by osteoporosis and can’t get up from his leather chair. When a visitor enters his room at the Berkshire, an assisted-living facility
-
Columbine 10 Years Later
How do you preside over the funeral of a 17-year-old boy who went to school one Tuesday morning and, with his good buddy Eric Harris, massacred 13 people just for fun? Dylan Klebold helped perpetrate one of the bloodiest school shootings in history, indelibly etching the name “Columbine” into our collective memories. Yet the Rev.