It was the night before Melanie Preston’s immigration flight to Israel and the 28-year-old daughter of a Jewish mother and an Irish Catholic father knew exactly what she wanted to eat. “I want a cheeseburger, right now,” she said, scanning a trendy South Florida menu. “You can get cheeseburgers in Israel, but you can’t get a really good one. You know?” This wasn’t just a wisecrack about the kosher tradition of separating meat and dairy products. This was the kind... Read more
Former Boston mayor Raymond Flynn doesn’t see a lot of Republicans at the 9 o’clock Sunday Mass at St. Vincent’s Catholic Church. This is a South Boston parish, the kind of place where Irish parishioners cherish photos of old-timers — like Flynn’s dockworker dad — marching on feast days with Cardinal Richard Cushing and a young John F. Kennedy. These are hardcore, working-class, union-card Catholics. “These people have never voted Republican in their lives,” said Flynn, who also served as... Read more
It was a cheesy ad slogan sure to raise eyebrows during the summer battle for the teen-movie bucks — “Got Passion? Get Saved!” An acidic take on a Christian high school, “Saved!” was crafted to make evangelicals punch their boycott buttons. It featured clean queen Mandy Moore as a Bible-throwing harpy from Hades. Macaulay “Home Alone” Culkin played a hip cynic in a wheelchair who shared cigarettes and sex with the school’s lone Jewess. Its all-tolerant God offered a flexible... Read more
Tony Campolo had a specific flock in mind as he prepared his first sermon for the 3-D, “virtual” sanctuary at the online Church of Fools. Using the lingo of his discipline, the sociologist referred to the typical wired worshippers as “religion-less Christians.” They yearn for “spirituality,” but believe they can do the faith thing on their own, without an institutional church. Campolo also assumed they spend lots of time wielding a mouse. So be it. “In evangelism, you have to... Read more
No Tony Campolo sermon would be complete without his pulpit-shaking gestures of inspiration and exasperation, punctuating litanies of not-so-subtle digs at U.S. foreign policy, Hollywood, Wall Street and the Religious Right. As he ended one recent oration, the sociologist, urban activist and evangelical gadfly fell to his knees, hands raised to heaven. “I believe Americans must heed this call and turn away from our wicked ways,” said Campolo, who made headlines counseling President Bill Clinton. “We need to turn away... Read more
George Gallup Jr. has been studying the numbers for a half century and nobody knows better than he does that they just don’t add up. Most of the familiar, comforting statistics that describe public religion remain remarkably stable from poll to poll. Somewhere around 86 percent of Americans say they believe in God and another 8 percent or so in a “higher power” of some kind. Sixty percent say faith is “very important” in daily life and another 15 percent... Read more
PHOENIX — Anyone with the nerve to create XXXChurch.com is going to get attention, especially if they keep calling it “the No. 1 Christian Porn Site.” “We’re No. 1 because there really isn’t a No. 2, which is a good business plan if you think about it,” said Craig Gross, co-founder of the ministry in Corona, Calif. Two years ago, Gross and partner Mike Foster opened their first booth at the Adult Video News trade show in Las Vegas, handing... Read more
Day after day, millions of Americans who frequent pews see ghosts when they pick up their newspapers or turn on television news. They read stories that are important to their lives, yet they seem to catch fleeting glimpses of other characters or other plots between the lines. There seem to be other ideas or influences hiding there. One minute they are there. The next they are gone. There are ghosts in there, hiding in the ink and the pixels. Something... Read more
ISTANBUL — There are two front gates into the walled compound that protects the home of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world’s 300 million Eastern Orthodox Christians. Visitors enter through a door secured by a guardhouse, locks and a metal-screening device. They cannot enter the Phanar’s main gate because it was welded shut in 1821 after the Ottoman Turks hanged Patriarch Gregory V from its lintel. The black doors have remained sealed ever since. A decade... Read more
This was the very rare week — third time in 17 years — when I did not file a column. I was traveling in Turkey and Greece and had trouble getting consistent Internet connections to do the column that I wanted to write. So I will file it next week. I did write a short post or two for www.getreligion.org Thanks. The column will return on its normal schedule this week. tmatt Read more
Terry Mattingly
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