THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER: A single columnist cannot possibly assess the flood of new religious books to rank the very best of 2025. But The Guy can attest that three new titles from really smart writers are really intriguing. Each is a good read for believers. But they’re particularly pertinent for someone without religious involvement who is open-minded, curious, and perhaps wondering amid the tinsel and eggnog whether there might be something to this whole God thing. One of the... Read more
THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER: America’s $72 billion gambling industry is expanding and fast evolving. A New York Times opinion piece November 2 was headlined “Gambling Is Killing Sports and Consuming America.” See https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/28/opinion/sports-gambling-major-leagues.html/. Joon Lee proceeded to describe and lament the explosion of easily accessible online betting through heavily advertised sites like DraftKings and FanDuel allied with professional sports. The headline on a simultaneous New Yorker piece by Danny Funt decried “The Sports Betting Disaster.” See https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/the-sports-betting-disaster/. In January, Funt... Read more
Should Marriage Between First Cousins Be Legal? THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER: Beliefs about this depend on what faith you follow, and where you live. Let’s first explain a fuss in Britain that makes this so timely. On September 22, England’s Genomics Education Program in the government’s National Health Service (NHS) posted an online article providing “guidance” on marriages between first cousins. That was logical because a pending bill in Parliament to make such unions illegal won support from 77% of... Read more
THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER: The choice of Sarah Mullally to be the Archbishop of Canterbury, 106th in a 1,428-year line of succession, is truly a world-historical moment. She is the first woman to be the spiritual leader of both the venerable Church of England and of the Anglican Communion, a major sector of world Christianity with 85 million or more members in 47 national branches — though this second role is problematic, as we’ll see. England’s national church (Scotland and... Read more
THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER: On Hallowe’en 508 years ago, Catholic monk and university professor Martin Luther issued “95 Theses” against church policies, the first of many dramatic eruptions that eventually split Europe and created Protestantism as a major new branch of the Christian religion. Today, Protestants number 629 million, according to De Gruyter Brill’s World Christian Database, along with 1.72 billion Catholics, 292 million Orthodox, and 409 million “Independents” in Africa, Asia, and Latin America whose modern-day indigenous churches are... Read more
THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER: The only humans yet to set foot on the Moon are American astronauts in the series of six Apollo landings that ended 53 years ago. But last January, President Donald Trump’s Inaugural Address proclaimed a far more extraordinary goal: “We will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the stars and stripes on the planet Mars. . . . Americans are explorers, builders, innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. The spirit of the frontier... Read more
THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER: This is a landmark year for what’s variously labeled “medical assistance in dying” (MAID), “doctor-assisted suicide,” death by choice,” “death with dignity,” “the right to die,” “euthanasia” or “mercy killing.” As this is written, Great Britain is on the brink of joining the West European nations that allow suicide under specified conditions. The same for New York State, which would follow 11 states plus the District of Columbia that have legalized suicide, starting with Oregon in... Read more
THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER: We don’t know when Christianity first reached the British Isles, but as early as A.D. 314, local bishops traveled to southern France for the first church council held after the Roman Empire halted persecution of the expanding faith. The succeeding 16½ centuries brought tumultuous schism and civil war in Britain, but also remarkably creative churchmanship in theology and education, pastoral work and missions, worship and devotion, nation-building and charitable outreach, the arts and music. That rich... Read more
THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER: Ask Harvard University. But first, The Guy mentions that British philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) said each person has God-given rights to life, liberty, and property. America’s Declaration of Independence replaced “property” with “the Pursuit of Happiness” as among humans’ “unalienable Rights . . . endowed by their Creator.” On the brink of the Declaration’s 250th anniversary, just how can happiness be pursued? Believe it or not, there’s an academic Journal of Happiness Studies (https://link.springer.com/journal/10902/). A leading... Read more
How Has Religion’s Evolution Debate Evolved? THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER: This month marks the 100th anniversary of the sensational “Monkey Trial,” a.k.a. the “Trial of the Century,” in Dayton, Tennessee. There, defendant John Scopes was convicted of violating a new state law that barred public schools from teaching evolution – specifically, “any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order... Read more
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