Humor can have salutary moral and religious effects, as we see in the literary traditions of satire and "serio ludere" (serious play). Two contemporary Christian practitioners of these arts from the confessional Lutheran persuasion are Anthony Sacramone (Luther at the Movies) and Hans Fiene (Lutheran Satire). The two have a conversation in "Religion & Liberty."
We usually associate religious cults with some bizarre made-up religions or with some kind of extreme religious fundamentalism. But one of the worst, most destructive cults grew out of mainline liberal Protestantism. And I saw how that happened.
Politicians (and voters) vs. economists; communal kitchens; and how about augmented reality?
We blogged about the controversy over the "filioque" in the Nicene Creed. But there are other differences from the original creed as formulated by the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople that also deserve our consideration. For example, most of us say "I believe," whereas the original says "We believe." There is a difference.
Supporting Israel's fight against terrorists and all that, but are you bothered by its tactic of turning thousands of widely-distributed pagers and walkie-talkies into bombs?
I grew up in mainline Protestantism and experienced it from the inside. I witnessed its influence and I was there when its influence started to disintegrate.
The Mainline Protestant churches had long played the role as America's conscience. After their collapse, neither Evangelicals nor Catholics have been able to fill the void. So argues Jake Meador of Mere Orthodoxy. I myself was a first-hand witness of both that influence and its collapse.
Thomas Traherne is the great poet of joy. Or, to use his term, "felicity." We should awaken to the joy that is ours as Christians, knowing that everything we perceive around us, no matter how ordinary, is a wondrous creation of God who loves us and who has redeemed us through Christ.
"We're going to have supervision"; snowflakes in the workplace; and church buildings going traditional.
"Contemporary Western cultures insist consciousness resides exclusively in our brains, but an abundance of recent scientific research indicates otherwise." So says Creighton med school professor Charles Camosy, who argues that this research is in accord with the Christian understanding of the soul.
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