Roman Catholics recently (Dec. 5 8) celebrated or observed (or marked) The Feast of the Immaculate Conception, which as this article explains is about the conception not of Jesus but of Mary. Protestants, at least in this part of the world, recently had a fellowship meal after which they sang lots of Advent and Christmas carols. High church folks, don’t get upset. Be happy Reformed Protestants are even acknowledging Christmas because they didn’t used to until retailers made it “the... Read more
Some dispute that Martin Luther ever said that he would rather be ruled by a wise Muslim than a foolish Christian, but apocryphal or not, it suggests an important insight in Luther’s theology that has implications for the way that Christians understand and live in the modern world. In the non-Lutheran part of the Protestant world, the desire to integrate faith and learning or to have a Christian worldview view of the world about all areas of earthly existence may... Read more
Take for instance the recent review essay in the New York Times of books on American Judaism in which the author, Gal Beckerman, writes this way about the United States even after the killing of 11 Jews on October 28 at a Pittsburgh synagogue: They were victims, in America, a country that has never seen even a hint of a pogrom. In their pain and worry, individual Jews had a rare chance to feel themselves part of a larger community... Read more
I keep seeing posts or tweets that suggest or even insist that Christianity is 100% behind social justice. This is an odd way for people to think who worship an innocent man (sinless even) executed by Roman authorities on the most shameful of all instruments of punishment that ancients can devise. In other words, the crucifixion was an enormous instance of injustice, social, political, theological, racial (possibly even economic). What prevents Jesus from qualifying on some metrics of intersectionality is... Read more
A good friend and great colleague in the study of U.S. history, Leo Ribuffo, has died. Details and obituaries have yet to surface. He was older and sometimes frail, so the news of his demise was not a surprise even if its suddenness shocked. I have known Leo since he identified himself as the reader of my then manuscript, an intellectual biography of J. Gresham Machen. Ever since, I have known Leo to be unpredictable and insightful in his judgments,... Read more
Matthew Schmitz must be a terrific poker player. At a time when the reasons for becoming a Roman Catholic are not looking particularly good, the editor at First Things, a convert from the Calvinistic Baptist world, has gone all in on the Roman Catholic Church’s possession of the true path to salvation. Particularly, in response to three recent deconversions — Melinda Henneberger, Melinda Selmys, and Damon Linker — Schmitz has the intestinal fortitude (some might say, temerity) to write that... Read more
Roger Olson observes that the current critics of evangelicalism, the so-called voices from the margins, want to be free from the white-male dominated power structures responsible for defining evangelicalism: After listening to the panelists’ papers and the ensuing open discussion, I wondered if 1) white, heterosexual men (like myself) have any place in this conversation anymore (I think not), and 2) if “evangelical” is now losing all meaning. Again, for all our faults and failures, we at least attempted to... Read more
When will John Fea turn from David Barton to Michael Gerson? The column about the wickedness of evangelical support from Trump (if only there were one) is a tad old now (Oct. 1) but it is littered with the sort of historical blunders that professional historians like John Fea regularly fault in David Barton, the Texan with the hat to match who dunks the American founding in the waters of lowest common denominator Protestantism. Consider the following: It is also... Read more
On the one hand, the further revelations of cases of sexual abuse and episcopal cover-up has led the editors at National Catholic Reporter to size up the crisis this way: The culture of the Catholic clergy and the state of the episcopacy have come under intense scrutiny as a result of the crisis, especially as it has dragged on for more than three decades and spread through the global community. And neither the culture nor the leadership level of the... Read more
Lots of Christians talk about social justice but what are they doing besides giving speeches, writing blogposts, or talking on podcasts? A while back, Tim Keller warned about making social justice a partisan political issue. Now comes a reminder that Christians should not take sides politically even as they advocate and pursue social justice: A call to unity can be easily misunderstood as advocating willful blindness to injustice and complacency in the face of sin. Some would argue, rightly, that... Read more
Putting the Protest in Protestant
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