Debra Haffner, whom I deeply respect and admire, has written a thoughtful piece at WaPo’s “On Faith” section. The meaty section of it reads: More than 30 years ago, many religious denominations courageously passed resolutions in support of women’s moral agency and their right to a safe and legal abortion. Despite numerous legal challenges and [...]
For those of you who don’t share my religious views, this post will be largely academic for you. But I hope that those who do share my religious views will take a moment to seriously consider the points I intend to raise. I grew up in a very conservative Christian household. We not only went [...]
From The Christian Science Monitor: In that nonsensical statement lies this little country’s big challenge. Swiss voters appear to have been caught up in the general European fear – some real, some imagined, and some manufactured – of Islamic extremism and culture clash. What makes this particularly tough for the Swiss government, which opposed the [...]
I’m proud to say that the Episcopal Bishop of Newark is unequivocally in favor of marriage equality. He has some interesting things to say about “traditional marriage”: But a closer look shows that the historical tradition of marriage is that of a contract between two men: the groom and the father of the bride. When [...]
Back before the Republican was a grand ole anything, the Whig Party ran the role of “honored opposition.” They formed mainly in opposition to what they saw as the autocratic rule of Andrew Jackson (who, no doubt, saw things differently). In general, they favored the legislature over the executive, seeing it as being closer to [...]
If you think you’ve seen bizarro behavior at townhall meetings this summer, wait until the debate turns in earnest to whether or not reproductive services will be covered. In response to a call for people of faith to be “abortion neutral,” Debra Haffner posted this. It’s worth a read…and a bit of thinking. First of [...]
A hundred and fifty years ago, it was common to refer to slavery as “that institution peculiar to the Southern States.” Blacks were considered by some religious “thinkers” to be “the sons of Ham, and therefore born into slavery. Southerners cried to the federal government, and then to the states, to defend this “Godly practice.” [...]
Matthew Avery Sutton writes about the inability of President Barack Obama to gain the goodwill of Evangelical Christians. His conclusion: So what can we do? Pray for the rapture. If evangelicals vanish, the rest of us might finally get better medical care, a healthier environment, a more just international community, and full civil rights for [...]
Yesterday, a facebook friend of mine fired off a message about Ayn Rand’s fictitious example of American Motors in Atlas Shrugged showing how communism defeats personal charity. Several responses flowed to his comment, all of which denounced socialism as being anti-thetical to Christian thought and/or existence. After a bit of thought, I find this to [...]
Wapo asks if Muslim holidays should be observed, we get one of the most asinine answers ever: The question of whether Muslim holidays should be added to public school calendars presupposes that Christian and Jewish holidays are now observed. If that were so, it would be appropriate to add Muslim holidays, and, as Mayor Bloomberg [...]
