(OPINION) Do disease and devastation for innocent people argue against God’s existence? C.S. Lewis and later writers see the opposite. Without the design and purpose of a moral God and the divine aspect of each person he creates, what could explain our inherent conviction that the innocent should not suffer, that certain things are unjust and that our world is awry?
Read More(OPINION) Pity U.S. colleges coping with political feuds, “diversity,” declining applications and enrollments, student debt and tight budgets. Add religious and moral issues, and things get even more complex.
Read More(OPINION) Why would anyone wonder about the sacred spot where God through Moses revealed the Ten Commandments and other biblical laws? Just look at the name. Doesn’t everybody know that Mount Sinai must of course be on the Sinai Peninsula and, specifically, at a long-venerated location there? And yet some insist the true location is in Saudi Arabia.
Read More(OPINION) Why do U.S. power-brokers, and journalists themselves, pay little or no heed to ardent pronouncements by the World Council of Churches and the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA?
Read More(OPINION) On the age-old but ever-debated topic of whether Jesus had brothers and sisters, The Guy would answer that — as is often the case — it depends on what church is fielding the question. From ancient times, Catholicism and Orthodoxy have said no. But virtually all Protestants since Martin Luther’s time have said yes.
Read More(OPINION) There’s obvious news potential in a poll about religious attitudes that covers 26 nations and with fresh data (collected between Jan. 20 and Feb. 3). Media chart-makers could have fun with the many numbers in the 40-page “Global Religion 2023: Religious Beliefs Across the World,” issued May 11 by Ipsos, the noted international market research and polling firm.
Read More(OPINION) Starting with a band of Anglicans landing at Jamestown in 1607 and then Pilgrim dissenters at Plymouth in 1620, various forms of Protestantism collectively dominated what became the United States. But the Religious Landscape Study from the Pew Research Center tells us the U.S. population is now only 46.6% Protestant.
Read More(OPINION) It’s time to focus on the U.S. Catholic vote in 2024, following up a prior Memo assessing religion angles with Donald Trump’s prospects. The Guy once again advises journalists and other observers that Catholics are more pivotal politically than unbudgeable Democrats such as Black Protestants, non-Orthodox Jews and nonreligious Americans.
Read More(OPINION) If the Anglican Communion did not suffer schism on April 21, it’s the next best thing. A declaration issued that day at the conclusion of an international church assembly in Kigali, Rwanda, means the media and other religion-watchers should gird loins for years of maneuvers, legalities, confusion and acrimony.
Read More(OPINION) “Why have many worshippers stopped singing in church?” The question in that headline accompanied a provocative article about U.S. Protestant church trends that The Guy will turn to in a moment. The answer is important, and it’s quite obvious to observers of the long-running “worship wars” that are about far more than guitars and drums supplanting pipe organs and hymnals.
Read More(OPINION) Faiths retain powerful impact in society despite the increase of people with no religious affiliation and other secular inroads. Relations among major faiths feel especially pertinent in 2023. So, in practice what do people know about other major world religions? What should they know?
Read More(OPINION) The world’s largest organization of Muslims is campaigning for thorough worldwide reform of how to understand the faith’s religious law, Shariah, and applied jurisprudence, Fiqh. Such an ambitious goal may seem unlikely, and to date, Western media have given the effort minimal coverage. It’s time for that trend to change.
Read More(OPINION) “Creating the Quran” will certainly offend believers in the orthodox view that between 610 and his death in 632, Muhammad, guided by the angel Gabriel, received God’s verbatim words, memorized them, dictated them to scribes and confirmed the entirety of the Quran’s revelations as they exist today.
Read More(OPINION) News about transgender issues tends to ignore medical morality, especially concerning underaged youths, and how various religious groups understand gender and why. Journalists should take notice when four vigorous arguments on the religious aspect appear in the space of just six days.
Read More(OPINION) The June 13-14 annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest Protestant denomination, will be a landmark gathering to decide whether to expel any congregation with a women pastor, thus affirming the SBC Executive Committee’s February expulsion of five such congregations.
Read More(OPINION) Religion writers, like many other Americans, doubtless find a February report on the well-being of American teens from the federal Centers for Disease Control nothing short of alarming.
Read More(OPINION) The media shouldn’t ignore that Nikki Haley’s life story is more religiously intriguing than any of the 16 Republicans on CNN’s list of other potential challengers to Donald Trump. She’s been regularly subjected to questions about conversion from her parents’ Sikh religious faith to Christianity at age 24.
Read More(OPINION) Is gambling evil? Among Christians, there’s a notable split on gambling between tolerant Catholics and Protestants, who’ve been mostly hostile. The two largest U.S. Protestant bodies, which disagree on many things, are both resolute in opposition.
Read More(OPINION) One reason the media often fail to “get” American evangelical Protestantism is that it’s a complex mashup of elements, not simply an alliance of conventional church bodies. This overlapping empire is important, and over the decades it rallied prominently at trade shows for retailers and broadcasters and the annual National Prayer Breakfast.
Read More(OPINION) The teaching against gay and lesbian sexual relationships stood essentially unquestioned for 2,000 years, but now that’s changing. Still, on the global level, some 2 billion people belong to Christian traditions where there’s no prospect of any major change, though individual members dissent. The same is true for a billion Muslims.
Read More
