On a recent family trip to Africa, spotting locals wearing T-shirts and baseball caps bearing obvious American brands or slogans became something of a parlor game — a way to pass long hours in the Land Rover driving from place to place, when we weren’t counting goats or looking for zebras. There was a rural farmer in a Redskins cap. A young woman, hips wrapped in a traditional cloth chitenge paired with a white T-shirt bearing the campaign slogan of... Read more

It is entirely possible to be a church-going Christian for 40 years and never hear a sermon preached solely from the Book of Leviticus. Leviticus is the third book of the Hebrew scriptures (i.e. the “Old Testament) that contains the laws, large and in minutiae, that God gave to the Israelites. Most people might be familiar with its odd edicts against, for instance, eating lobster or shaving your sideburns, and laws ordering menstruating women to sit in a tent apart... Read more

Theologians, psychologists and sociologists agree about the benefits — spiritual, emotional and communal — of confession. Revealing our sins and missteps to another person, whether in writing or in person, helps alleviate guilt and its accompanying anxieties, leading to happier, healthier living. Most recently, in what appears to be an unprecedented move, the Vatican gave its imprimatur to a thoroughly modern take on the ancient act of confession when one of its American bishops gave the thumbs up to “Confession:... Read more

There are two equal and opposite errors into which the human race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight. —    C.S. Lewis in “The Screwtape Letters“ Sir Anthony Hopkins, with his eerily cold, Hannibal Lecter stare and commanding British accent, could... Read more