John Witte, Jr.

Is polygamy the next same-sex marriage? Fundamentalist Mormons, Muslims, and others argue that federal and state statutes on religious freedom protect the practice. Some liberals have joined the cause, using arguments about sexual liberty, equality, and autonomy. Traditional criminal prohibitions . . . . Continue Reading »

The civic catechisms of our day still celebrate Thomas Jefferson’s experiment in religious liberty. To end a millennium of repressive religious establishments, we are taught, Jefferson sought liberty in the twin formulas of privatizing religion and secularizing politics. Religion must be . . . . Continue Reading »

“History is God’s theatre, . . . God’s jousting place.” Martin Luther In the spring of 1995, I visited the great Saxon capital of Dresden. I stood on the banks of the Elbe River at the site of the Frauenkirche”the monumental domed church, consecrated in 1734, graced by one . . . . Continue Reading »

“The apt and cheerful conversation of man with woman is the chief and noblest purpose of marriage,” wrote John Milton. “Where loving [conversation] cannot be, there can be left of wedlock nothing but the empty husk of an outside matrimony””dry, shrivelled, and dispensable. . . . . Continue Reading »