(OPINION) On April 22, 2021, British Parliamentarians recognized the atrocities perpetrated against the Uyghurs as genocide. This debate was only the second time the U.K. House of Commons was asked to recognize ongoing atrocities as genocide, with the first being in the case of Daesh atrocities against Yazidis, Christians and others.
Read More(OPINION) The Catholic news world has also seen its share of startups since the internet has changed the news industry. It’s these changes that have brought more issues like fake news and misinformation, but also allowed journalists to become entrepreneurs and build start-ups of their own.
Read More(OPINION) Any study of the COVID-19 pandemic's financial impact on America's nearly 17,000 parishes had to start with the early lockdowns that turned Easter 2020 into a virtual event, with millions of Catholics stuck at home, along with their wallets and checkbooks. The Pillar found that total offerings were 12% lower in 2020 than the previous year.
Read More(OPINION) Will the international community — and in particular the United States and other democracy-espousing nations — punk out as it did with the Nazi-run 1936 Berlin Olympics for the winter games in China in 2022? Or will the International community find some righteous backbone and either boycott the games, or make its opposition to Beijing’s policies known in another significant and unmistakable manner?
Read MoreMainstream rapper DMX (birth name Earl Simmons) passed away on April 9 after being in a coma for a week and suffering a heart attack. While his lyrics referenced the violence and drugs he knew well, DMX also aspired to be a pastor and ended his albums with gospel music and prayer.
Read MoreThis week’s Weekend Plug-in features Justin Bieber, $300 Bibles and all kinds of other interesting reads in the world of religion. As always, we round up all the week’s top headlines and best stories.
Read More(OPINION) Though Christianity later became preponderant in Europe and America, the assertion that it is a White man’s religion is neither historically accurate nor theologically correct.
Read More(OPINION) How do we assess what can be known about people and events from long ago that we ourselves did not witness? One approach is the ideology known as “logical positivism,’ which rules out supernatural claims in advance by definition and thus wipes out many assertions by the great world religions. That’s a simple method, but other philosophers say it’s far too simple.
Read More(OPINION) In the first decade of the 21st century, the Pew Research Center began charting a surge of religiously unaffiliated Americans, describing this cohort in a 2012 report with this newsy label – "nones." But, hidden under that "nones" umbrella are divisions that deserve attention. For example, the 2018 Cooperative Congressional Election Study found that 5.7% of the American population is atheist, 5.7% agnostic and 19.9% "nothing in particular."
Read More(ANALYSIS) The study characterizes the Supreme Court’s previous approach to religious freedom as one that interpreted the First Amendment’s religion clauses to offer “weak but meaningful” safeguards for minority faiths from adverse treatment by public policies that privileged “mainstream Christian organizations, practices, or values.” But the study’s authors also admit that conservative Christian values are no longer mainstream.
Read MoreBobby wrestles with a nasty finger infection. Meanwhile, evangelical leaders encourage congregants to take the COVID-19 vaccine, and a crucifix in a Michigan church was finally restored after being destroyed by a squirrel.
Read More(OPINION) Sarah J. Robinson, author of “I Love Jesus, but I Want to Die,” offers crucial information about shame for mental health disorders in the modern church through her own experience as someone diagnosed with suicidal depression.
Read More(OPINION) If the bike tire’s losing air, first fix the flat. Then reinflate. Our three awakenings quickly deflated because American Christianity kept trying to reinflate a leaking tire instead of first fixing it. Will “wokeness” have the same effect?
Read More(OPINION) Does Christianity believe in the “immortality of the soul”? No — Instead, Christianity teaches that just as Jesus arose bodily from the grave, so the promise of everlasting life involves a person’s eventual resurrection that unites the soul with the body in a newly glorified state.
Read More(OPINION) A recent New York Times piece about an ancient manuscript that seems to validate the book of Deuteronomy was nicely timed for Jewish Passover and Christian Holy Week when media often dig into biblical mysteries and controversies. But the news here is the April publication of Israeli-American scholar Idan Dershowitz's book "The Valediction of Moses: A Proto-Biblical Book."
Read More(OPINION) This year’s Holy Week started badly in that it coincided with the kick-off of the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former policeman accused of causing the death of George Floyd on May 25 last year in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This is an event that opens wounds in many hearts.
Read More(OPINION) After a media firestorm ignited by a Vatican condemnation of same-sex unions – because God "cannot bless sin" – Catholic progressives immediately looked for hope in the words of bishops, President Joe Biden and even Pope Francis. In his Sunday Angelus address after the March 15 ruling, the pope stressed that modern seekers want to "see Jesus" in acts of love, not persecution.
Read More(OPINION) This week the Seymour Institute for Black Church and Policy Studies, led by Dr. Jacqueline Rivers and Rev. Eugene Rivers, released a statement, “How the Equality Act Harms the Black Church”, writing that while the Black Church has historically - and continues - to act as “the central institution in the life of the African American community... the Equality Act poses a threat to the ability of the Church to continue to play this role.”
Read More(ANALYSIS) In the current crisis in northern Ethiopia, religion is used as a tool to misinform the international community, Ethiopian scholar Desta Heliso writes. The resulting diplomatic tensions are endangering not just the future of Ethiopia’s 110 million people, but peace in the whole Horn of Africa.
Read More(OPINION) On his first day as president, Joe Biden issued an “Executive Order on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities.” It essentially gives government agencies the right to take whatever measures it deems necessary to achieve equal outcomes. But this confuses equality with equity — principles with drastically different meanings and biblical grounds.
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