Something quite extraordinary took place last week. President Sisi of Egypt called for a theological revolution in Islam. He complained that Muslim texts have permitted an alien ideology to be imposed on original Islamic texts, with the result that the rest of the world has been antagonized. The rest of the world, he said, has gotten the impression that 1.6 billion Muslims want to kill everyone else in order that Muslims “might live.” He denounced this “mindset” as a way... Read more

It’s all been a terrible misadventure. I’ve never been a woman, just Alan . . . the analogy I use about giving surgery to someone desperate to change sex is it’s a bit like offering liposuction to an anorexic. http://www.virtueonline.org/trouble-transtopia-murmurs-sex-change-regret   Read more

Eight major studies of identical twins in Australia, the U.S., and Scandinavia during the last two decades all arrive at the same conclusion: gays were not born that way. http://www.virtueonline.org/scientific-evidence-debunks-existence-gay-gene Read more

Winner of two Pulitzer Prizes and scores of others, John Updike (1932 – 2009) is best known for his graphic but lyrical portrayal of the sexual infidelities of middle America in the 1960s and beyond. It was not for nothing that he was called the poet laureate of modern adultery. The most famous of his 60-odd books was Couples, the story of a band of spouse-trading friends, one of whom greeted her lover with the legendary words, “Welcome to the... Read more

Yesterday I took a glorious walk with my wife on one of the ridges of the Appalachian Trail. Jean reminded me, as we smelled the Christmas-like pines and gazed at the rippling rows of mountains stretched out on the other side of valleys below us, that there are only two creatures who disobey God. (more…) Read more

While I was attending a professional development workshop for nearly two-hundred teachers several weeks ago, a particularly confusing comment caught my attention. The topic was bullying—how to spot it, prevent it, and deal with it. In one example, the bullying was based on religion. The facilitator discussed how to manage such a situation, and then concluded by reminding us all that, “the religious aspect of the bullying should not be something we address head on. After all, we have separation... Read more

Within this chaos, only one island of sanity can be found where the Christians are not persecuted, where they enjoy freedom of religion and ritual, freedom of expression, and where they can live in peace without fear of genocide. That island is the State of Israel. http://mida.org.il/2014/12/24/thanks-israel-can-merry-christmas/ Read more

WSJ: Eric Metaxas In 1966 Time magazine ran a cover story asking: Is God Dead? Many have accepted the cultural narrative that he’s obsolete—that as science progresses, there is less need for a “God” to explain the universe. Yet it turns out that the rumors of God’s death were premature. More amazing is that the relatively recent case for his existence comes from a surprising place—science itself. (more…) Read more

This is an important analysis by a leading traditional Catholic intellectual (whose book Debating Gay Marriage is terrific) of an important new survey of religion in America. (more…) Read more

Training wheels for Jesus. (more…) Read more