The latest rage among those who are "spiritual but not religious" is animism. That is the religion associated with what used to be called "primitive tribes," the view that animals, plants, bodies of water, and natural forces are animated by spirits, which must be placated and worshiped.
From time immemorial, physicians have sworn to "do no harm." Of course, they have also sworn not to commit abortion. Or euthanasia. Those parts have been omitted in the many versions of the Hippocratic Oath that physicians have to take upon graduation from medical school. Some of today's physicians are vowing to oppose the "gender binary" and to honor "indigenous healing" practices.
"Gender affirming care" for children who want to be a different sex is a defining cause for woke progressives. But a doctor who specializes in such treatments is admitting that puberty blockers and hormone treatments given to pre-pubescent children will sterilize them permanently and may prevent them from ever functioning sexually.
In support of Vladimir Putin's order to mobilize Russians for the war in Ukraine, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, proclaimed that “sacrifice in the course of carrying out your military duty cleanses away all sins.” This is the theology of Islamic jihad and the medieval crusades, both of which victimized Orthodox Christians. And it is the antithesis of the Christian gospel.
Herschel Walker, the Republican running for the Senate in Georgia, staked out a "no exceptions" position opposing abortion. But then a report came out claiming that the pro-life football superstar paid for a girl friend's abortion. How should voters handle hypocrisy as a campaign issue? In politics, is it more important to have moral policies or to be moral oneself?
What makes "Antichrist," according to a passage from Dostoevsky's "The Idiot," is when the church seeks "universal temporal power." This distorts Christ, says Dostoevsky, and breeds both atheism and socialism.
Dostoevsky's great novel "The Idiot," with its absorbing portrait of a "completely beautiful human being," includes a curious anti-Catholic rant, which speaks also to our contemporary issues about churches that try to exercise temporal power.
Historian Philip Jenkins notes says that there has been a great deal of scholarship about anti-Catholicism, but hardly any about anti-Protestantism, despite its vast amount and its historical significance. Luther is portrayed as the exemplar of all that is wrong with Protestantism, even though Luther attacked his fellow Protestants for some of the same reasons that the Catholics do.
The Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe v. Wade might seem to be a pyrrhic victory for the pro-life cause. Backlash against it has energized the pro-abortion side, causing some Republicans and even some Christians to tone down their pro-life positions. But 14 states now have zero abortion providers, shutting down clinics that were committing 125,000 abortions per year.
A book on "wellness" as a new religion quotes the late contemporary novelist David Foster Wallace, who said that "everybody worships." But that if you worship money, things, your own body, or anything but God, it "will eat you alive." Which ties in to something Luther said.
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