There they go again. The usual gang of Catholic theology professors has signed a manifesto, “On all of our shoulders: A Catholic Call to Protect the Endangered Common Good.” It claims to warn us of the grave danger posed by Congressman Paul Ryan. The future of America is at stake! The integrity of Catholicism hangs in the balance! http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2012/10/the-embarrassment-of-the-catholic-left   Read more

Jewish groups are pulling out of the Christian-Jewish Roundtable after 15 Protestant leaders, on the Jewish High Holidays, urged Congress to cut aid to Israel. http://www.jewishpress.com/news/us-news/why-we-stay-away-from-the-interfaith-roundtable/2012/10/19/ Read more

In a world where the government believes that the First Amendment’s religious freedoms don’t apply to churches, religious organizations, non-profit and for-profit businesses, health-care providers, and anyone outside the four walls of a church building, we are all at risk. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/10/6548/?utm_source=RTA+Hausknecht&utm_campaign=winstorg&utm_medium=email Read more

And whether they really matter in the presidency. Gerald R. McDermott http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2012/october-web-only/differences-between-mormonism-christianity.html Read more

from the Arab News in Saudi Arabia The starvation, the killings and the destruction in these Arab countries are done by the same hands that are supposed to protect and build the unity of these countries and safeguard the people of these countries. So, the question now is that who is the real enemy of the Arab world? http://www.arabnews.com/arab-spring-and-israeli-enemy Read more

Robert Benne is the author of “Good and Bad Ways to Think About Religion and Politics” Gerald R. McDermott is coauthor of “Evangelicals and Mormons: Exploring the Boundaries” Evangelicals who have had concerns about Mitt Romney’s Mormonism, and who make up a large portion of Republican voters, should consider Romney’s religion a positive in this election. http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/inquirer/20121014_Romney_s_Mormonism_is_a_positive_in_campaign.html Read more

Is Genesis’s description of the universe at its inception, before the creation of light, a radically reimagined, reworked and de-mythologized rendering of the Babylonian legend, one in which primal matter is no longer represented by gods, and where monotheistic grandeur replaces polytheistic savagery? http://www.jidaily.com/44de5?utm_source=Jewish+Ideas+Daily+Insider&utm_campaign=8683e00953-Insider&utm_medium=email Read more

Jon Levenson “The Hebrew Bible is the modern university’s blind side,” Yoram Hazony writes, and his new book represents a spirited and determined effort to show the modern academy just what a precious resource it is missing and just how impoverished its thinking is as a result. http://www.jewishreviewofbooks.com/publications/detail/category-error Read more

In my first post of this series, I called attention to a short article titled “Seamless Silliness” that I wrote shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The first half of that piece criticized the seamless garment pacifist assertion that “killing is killing and killing is wrong. But in the second half of that article, I took to task some comments made by Miroslav Volf in an interview for Christianity Today titled “To Embrace the Enemy: Is Reconciliation... Read more

This reference to the intrinsic and thus genuine nature of these evils should be a terrifying warning to every Christian and all people affirming the universal moral code called natural law. It should send chills down the spines of Republican strategists and conservative pundits who decided that in this year’s race economic issues trump everything, including the paramount concern over the sanctity of life. http://uwesiemon.blogspot.com/2012/10/trivializing-evil-gop-madness.html Read more