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Pity the atheist.
There are not very many of them and a great many people in the U.S. already don't like them.
That is too bad, since many atheists are decent people who share basic American commitments to justice and the civil order even if they don't share the basic American belief that these rights are an endowment by the Creator.
I have wanted to visit Russia my entire life. I have dreamed of it, hoped for it, and been disappointed several times. Reading about Russia consumes a good bit of my free time. Growing up in the winter of the Cold War made my dream to see Saint Petersburg, red stars replaced by golden eagles, seem a fantasy. Finally, at the end of May, I made a short visit and saw much and am left to think about more.
Reading is no substitute for seeing. I saw so many things:
Young Russians standing in prayer before receiving communion in the church attached to Alexander Palace, chief home of the martyred last Russian Tsar.
The graves of Russian revolutionaries in Saint Petersburg still a shrine to the Communists who visit. It is untouched, I am told, because the new Russia will not try to erase the past as the Communists did.
Teach college students and you end up at a lot of weddings in June. This first real summertime month also contains my own wedding anniversary. Weddings and marriage are on my schedule, in my heart, and on the news.
This may be remembered as the Summer of Love, Whatever That Is.
When I was asked to list a good book to read this summer, I naturally thought of love and marriage as a good theme for the summer of 2008. This is a good time to clarify, or at least think about, what love is.
In light of the new Mike Myer's film that mocks religion (in this case Hinduism), there are four obvious things to say and one sad truth.
First, filmmakers have the right to make such films. We should do all we can to protect that right. Religious groups wanting to use the power of law to silence critics are wrong. Such a position has been tried by both secularists (in places like the Soviet Union) and Christians (with public blasphemy laws) and it leads to bad governance and bad for religion.
Science does a wonderful job making my body healthy.
That is good, but religion can do something better. Christianity cures my soul so that I can live well as a whole person.
After all, bad men are not blessed when they have good health. Sound bodies just give them a greater chance to harm others and deeply harm their own souls. As many great saints demonstrate, cure the soul and a man or woman can make a great life out of very trying physical circumstances.
Some people pick churches the way they pick clothing: based on personal comfort and style. Other people select their religious home for bad reasons: they hope to gain some personal or political advantage from it.
It is difficult to understand how Senator Obama could attend a church for twenty years, defend it in one of the most eloquent speeches I have heard, and then suddenly have an epiphany, in the heat of a political campaign, about the nature of the place where he trusted his own and his children’s spiritual well being. Miracles still do happen, so it is possible that God appeared to the Senator on the Road to Denver, but this miracle happened very conveniently for the Senator’s ambitions.
Greed is Hell’s parody of love. Like an email alerting you to your unexpected Nigerian lottery winnings, it looks good at first, but is a dangerous fraud. Greed takes desire and worships it.
The problem with ideologues in politics is their attempt to make a science of something that is an art. Unlike Aristotle and Burke, ideologues forget that politics is inexact and that wisdom has been hard won over centuries of experience and thought. There is, really, no science of politics. Of course, the same difficulties apply to ethics.
An Evangelical Christian is a follower of the teachings of Jesus. They live within a knowledge tradition marked by a commitment to reason, truth, authenticity, moderation, and charity.
Evangelicals are dynamic and not parochial, growing explosively all over the world. Evangelicals are urban and rural, black and white, Hispanic and Anglo. They are members of old religious groups and new ones. If you are reading this, you probably have an Evangelical friend, though you may not know it.
What Islam Really Says About Violence, Rights and Other Religions
Gomaa, Fadlallah, Mubarak, Khan, Siddiqi, Ellison, others | On Faith
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