Religion Dispatches
Walt Whitman counseled each of us to “dismiss whatever insults your soul.” My fervent hope is that the new Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences report—a project of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences that was “commissioned” or “requested” by a quartet of DC pols—will be dismissed accordingly.
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Graduation time—and the living ain’t easy.
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Bob Edgar, United Methodist pastor, former Congressman, and former National Council of Churches general secretary, left this world last week while fighting for what mattered most to him: integrity and accountability in public life.
Read MoreMy grandfather, born to immigrants in 1878, was undoubtedly familiar with the all-but-forgotten figure of Robert Green Ingersoll, the “Great Agnostic,” who popularized Darwin for the millions, who championed the disgraced Thomas Paine, and who kept alive the important tradition of American free thought during the last quarter of the 19th century.
Read MoreFaux philanthropy meets creepy credulity.
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When DC’s Religion Industrial Complex sings its hosannas about evangelicals moving toward progressive social positions I always try to be hopeful, even as I turn a gimlet eye to what’s really happening beneath the headlines.
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What McLaren is after is a Christian faith that is not automatically hostile to other faiths and to no faith: he calls this “strong-benevolent” Christianity, observing along the way that only active peacemakers can really claim to be connected to God with any real degree of credibility—a point that should be obvious but isn’t.
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If having your church tell you what to believe and what to espouse in public is deeply offensive, imagine what an abomination is to have your employer controlling you in this way.
Read MoreThey should have taken the week off.
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An RD holiday sampler of stories & viewpoints we would have liked to read in 2012.