THE QUESTION: Why is January 1st New Year’s Day? THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER: There’s a religious angle here, as with almost any major aspect of human culture past and present. Our January 1 observance stems from ancient paganism. The numbering of “2021,” as with every year, reflects the global reach of Christianity. And the specific day everyone reckons to be January 1 was fixed by the Catholic Church during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation hostilities. Alongside this conventional calendar, many faiths... Read more

THE QUESTION: Should Bibles speak of a “virgin” birth in Isaiah 7:14? THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER: No less than 38 U.S. orchestras featured Handel’s “Messiah” in annual Christmas concerts during the 2015-16 season, making it “the runaway most-performed work,” according to a Baltimore Symphony survey. The beloved 1741 oratorio about Jesus Christ is also perhaps the most-performed piece across all of musical history — if we exclude “Happy Birthday to You.” In this COVID Christmas, audiences must make do without... Read more

THE QUESTION: What does American “religious freedom” now mean? THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER: Protection of Americans’ “free exercise” of religion has been guaranteed by the Bill of Rights for 229 years and counting. Till recently, people generally agreed on what this means. The debates involved whether this constitutional right should be exercised or restricted in specific, unusual situations. For example, the Supreme Court has permitted the Santeria faith to conduct ritual slaughter of animals, and exempted Amish teens from mandatory... Read more

THE QUESTION: What is the world’s worst government in terms of restricting religious liberty? THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER: China. No contest. That’s shown in an elaborate Pew Research Center accounting issued this month that covers all categories of official religion restrictions in 198 nations and territories as of 2018. The Communists who rule the world’s largest population expend incredible efforts on their atheistic crusades, and are equal opportunity offenders who attack both faith in general and a variety of specific... Read more

THE QUESTION:  What role does religion play in Supreme Court justices’ nominations and decisions? THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER: By a thin margin, Amy Coney Barrett won confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court without the quizzing about her devout Catholicism like Senate Democrats Diane Feinstein raised with Barrett’s lower-court nomination and Kamala Harris (now apparent vice president-elect) with another judicial nominee. But the media pushed this theme, including her involvement with People of Praise, a close-knit community of “charismatic” Catholic families.... Read more

THE QUESTION: Why are U.S. voters so wary about electing atheists? THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER: Political firsts are piling up! Joe Biden was America’s first Catholic vice president elected alongside the first Black president, Barack Obama, and hopes to be its second Catholic president. Running mate Kamala Harris would be the first female, first African-American, and first Asian-American as vice president. Jimmy Carter was not the first evangelical president but the first whose faith got such scrutiny. (See note below... Read more

THE QUESTION: Where does the Catholic Church stand on the death penalty and war? THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER: Pope Francis’s encyclical letter Fratelli Tutti (“Brothers All”), issued October 3, reinforces his profile as a socio-political liberal and idealist. Employing this the highest vehicle for authoritative papal teaching, he addresses racism and rampant nationalism (which some say especially targets the current U.S. situation), and yokes concern for the poor with a semi-socialistic view of private property. His views perhaps reflect the... Read more

THE QUESTION: Whatever happened to U.S. “Mainline” Protestantism over the past half-century? THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER: What’s known as “Mainline” Protestantism was pretty much America’s culture-defining faith till well after World War Two. Fifty years ago, these church groups still maintained high morale and together boasted at least 28 million members. But by the latest available statistics they’ve shrunk 45%, to 15.5 million. During those same decades, the U.S. population increased 61%. Across U.S. religious history, nothing like this has... Read more

THE QUESTION: “Would America Be Better Off Without Religion?” THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER: That provocative big-picture question is the title of an article by grad student Casey Chalk, which we’ll turn to after some ground-clearing. Atheism (or its cousin, agnosticism) isn’t what it used to be. Folks who didn’t believe in God used to mostly downplay  it while polite public debate engaged certain thinkers like Bertrand Russell (“Why I Am Not a Christian,” 1927) or J. L. Mackie (“The Miracle... Read more

THE QUESTION: What is “biblicism”? THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER: This question is the title of an article this month on patheos.com by Michael Bird, an Anglican priest who teaches theology at Australia’s Ridley College and is also a visiting professor at Houston Baptist University. See www.patheos.com/blogs/euangelion/2020/08/what-is-biblicism. More on Bird in a bit, but first let’s lay some ground. The dictionary definition of biblicism is adherence to a literal interpretation of the Bible. Merriam-Webster dates the first known use of this... Read more