The general convention of the Episcopal Church ended last month in Anaheim, Calif., with a whimper, despite these rather staggering announcements: it would, after years of internal battling, continue to elevate gay priests to bishops, and it would consider blessing same-sex unions in the states that allow gays and lesbians to marry. The convention—and these […]
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America is not a Christian nation. We are, it is true, a nation founded by Christians, and according to a 2008 survey, 76 percent of us continue to identify as Christian (still, that’s the lowest percentage in American history). Of course, we are not a Hindu—or Muslim, or Jewish, or Wiccan—nation, either. A million-plus Hindus
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I do not believe that the Christian faith of Dr. Francis Collins, recently nominated to run the National Institutes of Health, disqualifies him from that job. The only questions that need be asked of Collins are these: Is he a good enough scientist? And will he be a passionate and relentless advocate for science and
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Last week, as President Obama was announcing his pick for surgeon general—a Roman Catholic African-American and MacArthur “genius” award winner who has spent her career caring for the poor on Alabama’s Gulf Coast—I was on the phone with the Princeton professor and public intellectual Cornel West. He was reiterating his complaint, which he had aired
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When it came out in 2000, Every Man’s Battle was an instant sensation. Written by Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoeker, two evangelical Christians, it brought the subject of male lust into the open. Men, the book said—even Christian men—were dogs. They ogled women, they dreamed about cheating on their wives. They read porn. They masturbated.
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Their wives, it should be said at the outset, do not entirely approve: Bob and Ralph Brown, two 50-something brothers, are planning to steer their 21-foot flats boat—a motorized fiberglass raft—across the Atlantic Ocean to honor three Marines who died for their country nearly 30 years ago. The boat has a canopy roof, but no
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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
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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
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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
Is the Time for Christian Magazines Over Read More »