Rich Mullins’ songs are some of the most recognizable and enduring tunes in contemporary Christian music”a genre heavily influenced by and almost exclusively marketed to Evangelicals. Still, even Catholics and mainline Protestants recognize the refrain of his best-known hit, “Awesome God” … Continue Reading »
Any Catholic who has attended a parish fundraiser is familiar with the concept of a so-called “Chinese Auction”: One buys a round of tickets, surveys a table laden with baskets of cheer, baby items, sports memorabilia and other tchotchkes, and then drops a ticket or two into paper bags near selected items . . . Continue Reading»
Obama’s victory in November reflects an important trend. Our political culture is now being shaped by liberals. That’s not because their ideas are sound. They’re often not. But conservatives largely don’t have ideas, or at least not ones that can animate national campaigns… . Continue Reading »
When the next pope is elected, pronouncements from major Jewish organizations will follow this basic script: Mazel tov. Your recent predecessors did many good things for the Jews; please expand them. Your predecessors also did many bad things for the Jews; please admit this and do better. Mazel tov again, and keep in touch.… Continue Reading »
What does it mean for an Evangelical theologian to say that the next pope should be Catholic? Is this a joke? Actually, no. As one involved in various church dialogues over the past thirty years, I have come to see the crucial role played by the Bishop of Rome in helping all Christians everywhere to work together for Christian unity. … Continue Reading »
Thirty years ago, who would have dreamed that a 490-page book by a Russian Orthodox monk would sweep Russia and sell millions of copies around the world? But that has been the deserved publishing history of Everyday Saints and Other Stories, recently translated into English… . Continue Reading »
Tariq Ramadan emerged after September 11 as an apologist for a liberal, peaceful interpretation of Islam, earning him plaudits from the Western media, including the title of the “Muslim Martin Luther” in a 2004 Washington Post op-ed. In his new book, Islam and the Arab Awakening, he is at pains to stay on script. More than anything, he means to show that the Arab Spring is not a catalyst for the rise of Islamist regimes, but instead could be the initial step in throwing off the yoke of European colonialism and American imperialism … Continue Reading »
On March 24, 1980, Archbishop Oscar Romero was shot during the celebration of Mass by the death squadrons of El Salvador’s military government. Today his reputation is undergoing a second assassination: Critics have responded to the floating of his name for beatification by wrongly charging the man with supporting violence, communism, and heresy. Those who would make the archbishop a radical hero have offered their own version of these claims in approving tones. Both are wrong… . Continue Reading »
In a piece in the March issue of First Things, David Bentley Hart suggests that the arguments of natural law theorists are bound to be ineffectual in the public square. The reason is that such arguments mistakenly presuppose that there is sufficient conceptual common ground between natural law theorists and their opponents for fruitful moral debate to be possible… . Continue Reading »
ROME”At the point at which John Paul II began his papacy in the first volume of my biography of him, Witness to Hope, I borrowed some thoughts from Hans Urs von Balthasar and tried to explain a bit of the uniqueness of the papal office: To be pope is to take on a task that is, by precise theological definition, impossible… . Continue Reading »
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