On Tuesday, Aaron Judge hit 62 home runs, breaking Roger Maris's American League record of 61. Maris's son has called on Major League Baseball to expunge the National League record of 73 homers set by Barry Bonds, since he is widely thought to have taken performance enhancing drugs. Should that allegation take away his record?
Projections that Christianity will dwindle in America call to mind George Herbert's poem "Church Militant," in which he predicted that Christianity would leave England for America. It may be now that Christianity, as a dominant religion, is moving to Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. But immigrants from these regions could well bring Christianity back to the West.
Saul Alinsky's rule for radicals #5 is "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon." Today it has become a staple for the right as well as the left. Ridicule, as well as manufacturing outrage, now dominates our political rhetoric. According to the ancients, satire promotes morality by ridiculing vice. But the Bible warns against certain kinds of mockery.
A great deal of scholarship ties the Scandinavian combination of free market capitalism with a generous welfare state to the Nordic countries' Lutheran heritage. Luther's doctrine of vocation focused on work as a means to love and serve your neighbors, whereas Calvin's focused on acquiring wealth and aggrandizing the self. Other Lutheran social teachings had a formative role. But today this "secular Lutheranism" falls short.
The Nordic political and economic system is sometimes called "Lutheran socialism." But, despite what American progressives are saying, it isn't really socialism. The Nordic countries are actually more free market-oriented than the United States. The combination of capitalism and generous social benefits might better be called "Lutheran capitalism."
Lutheran political scientist James R. Rogers criticizes National Conservatism in terms of Luther's doctrine of the Three Estates. The movement's "Statement of Principles," he says, "looks to the nation and other worldly institutions to provide the type of solidarity only the Church can provide, and aspirations only the Church can realize."
Republicans hope to unite their party, appeal to voters, and sweep to victory in the midterm elections with the help of a document entitled "The Republican Commitment to America." What do you think about this platform? Do you think it will work as intended? Discuss.
Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell has said that he is going to get tough on inflation, raising interest rates even though that might mean "pain" in unemployment and recession. What he didn't say is that he and his institution played a big part in making the mess that he is now trying to clean up.
The Faith and Media Initiative has conducted a massive study of how religious different countries are and how the media in the various nations of the world cover religion. It discloses some surprises about particular countries and uncovers a theme common to both religious and less-religious nations: journalists just don't know how to cover religion, even though their publics want them to. Read more
The new "State of Theology" study shows that large percentages of evangelicals are heretics, universalists, and humanists. They do, however, tend to be conservative when it comes to moral and culture war issues. Theological illiteracy, though, is spiritually dangerous.
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