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I welcome the attention that serious atheists like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris are offering the world at this moment through their books. They are bringing what I regard as a deserved criticism and a necessary correction to what Christianity has become in our generation.
No!! Religion per se should not be a mandated program of study for anyone at any time.
Fair is not the right word. The reputable media struggles to be fair. Generally, however, the media distortion comes from the fact that media people are not scholars in the field and consciously and unconsciously make assumptions that are quite obviously uninformed.
This question seems designed to elicit hostility under the cover of religion. Anyone who would answer that question with a “yes” would reveal only abysmal ignorance of Islam. Suppose the question were posed: “Do you think Christianity is a violent religion?” Would not Christians think that was an inappropriate invitation to express religious hostility?
America has not yet escaped all of its prejudices against Mormonism expressed so openly in the 19th century. Most of that prejudice grew out of the controversy over polygamy.
When George Romney, the three times Republican Governor of Michigan, ran for the Republican nomination for President in 1968, he had to seek to blunt prejudice about his religion. It came primarily in the form of questions about the official Mormon policy about black people. He distanced himself from the offending words in the Book of Mormon, but he ultimately lost the nomination to Richard Nixon. His Mormon religion seemed to play little role in that defeat. His comment about having been “brainwashed” over the issue of Viet Nam was thought to be far more the issue than his religion. Perhaps the money and organization possessed by Richard Nixon was the real reason for his defeat.
It is difficult for anyone to say with certainty what Jesus was. The portrait painted of him in the gospels was written forty to seventy years after his earthly life had come to an end. By that time Jesus had been wrapped inside both the Jewish Scriptures and the liturgy of the synagogue which meant they interpreted him in terms of Jewish images and Jewish expectations.
The clear impression conveyed by the gospel writers, however, is that Jesus, following in the prophetic tradition in which his life was rooted, took his stand alongside the poor, the marginalized and the dispossessed. He is portrayed as touching the leper, protecting the woman taken in adultery, talking to a woman by the well publicly, welcoming children, extolling the virtues of the Samaritans and as saying “Go into all the world,” thus sending his disciples beyond their tribal limits into a place inhabited by those who spoke differently, worshipped differently and were defined as unclean Gentiles. Jesus was remembered by the gospel writers as a barrier breaker.
Yes, completely. If I had my life to live over again, I would choose the same career path, marry the same wife, have the same children and serve the same congregations and the same diocese.
I loved every phase of my professional life. I loved being a priest and pastor. I loved being a bishop and an author. I love being retired now with a still developing writing career.
Do I have worries and concerns. Of course!
This question assumes that faith is related to external events and that believing means things will work out properly in the life of the believer. As such this question is a parody on both faith and life.
Life is not fair. It is full of cruelty and pain. Good people die young. Scoundrels live to ripe old age. Despots thrive, idealists perish.
Faith is not a good luck charm. Believing does not provide life insurance or assurance.
Faith means that we live in trust that God is life calling us to live, God is love calling us to love, and that God is the ground of Being giving us the courage to be all that we were meant to be. Faith means we do not engage in pious self-deception. It means that we walk boldly into the unknown. It means we transform the present with a vision of the reign of God.
Only worshipers of an idol of their own wish fulfillment could ask this particular question in the way it is posed. Only one who uses faith as a drug against reality could answer it in this form.
I doubt if it will change it much. All it demonstrates is that religion is important to a significant part of the American population and no serious candidate for the presidency will ignore that block of voters. Hot button issues like abortion and homosexuality have been used primarily by the Republicans to bind working class Roman Catholics and Evangelical Protestants to their banner.
God, however, is not in the service of any party and the excessive religious claims of Republicans, particularly on such issues as Terri Schiavo, the war, and limiting the availability of approved birth control medications and attempts to amend the Constitution to discriminate against homosexual people has already convinced most Americans that they do not want either party pretending that their policies and God’s policies are identical.
What Islam Really Says About Violence, Rights and Other Religions
Gomaa, Fadlallah, Mubarak, Khan, Siddiqi, Ellison, others | On Faith
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