Here’s a tough question for American pastors: If local school officials voted to limit the freedom of Muslim students to publicly practice their faith, would you urge your flock to protest? Those who believe in religious liberty must answer “yes,” according to the Rev. Rick Warren, leader of the 20,000-member Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif. “If a school district tells me that a Muslim girl can’t wear a headscarf to school, I’m going to oppose that rule,” he said,... Read more
On the night he was betrayed, the rabbi from Nazareth gave blunt, by mysterious, instructions about the rite that would forever be at the center of Christian life. The Gospel of St. Luke reports: “He took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which... Read more
As soon as Pope Benedict XVI announced he would surrender St. Peter’s throne, messages stopped flowing to the 1.5 million or so readers following his newborn @Pontifex feed at Twitter. This wasn’t surprising since the 85-year-old theologian — bookish and reserved, by nature — cited his deteriorating health and declining energy as reasons to let a new pope wrestle with a world “subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith.”... Read more
In the spring of 2009, Pope Benedict XVI stopped in Aquila, Italy, to pray at the shrine of St. Celestine V. The pope left his pallium — a wool garment that resembles a yoke, symbolizing bonds between a shepherd and his flock — on this medieval pope’s tomb, noted theologian Scott Hahn of Franciscan University of Steubenville. Then, 15 months later, he visited a cathedral outside Rome to pray before the relics, once again, of St. Celestine V. Few noticed... Read more
It’s natural for any employee to want to know just how committed the big boss is to the company’s future and, especially, to the expansion project that includes his job. So, even though Pope Benedict XVI didn’t make it to America in person, Father Jason Catania still appreciated the message he sent to the former Episcopal priests and others who swam the Tiber to Rome after the pontiff’s controversial “Anglicanorum Coetibus (“groups of Anglicans”) pronouncement in 2009. “We didn’t just... Read more
Back in 1969, the same year as Woodstock, Gallup Poll researchers asked Americans this moral question: “Do you think it is wrong for a man and a woman to have sexual relations before marriage, or not?” “Yes, wrong,” responded 68 percent of those polled, while 21 percent said, “No, not wrong.” By 1973, the traditionalist camp affirming that premarital sex was wrong was down to 47 percent and the minority of those disagreeing rose to 43 percent. In 1991, only... Read more
Week after week, year after year, ministers rise to preach knowing their flocks expect them to deliver messages that are truly inspired by God or, at the very least, somewhat uplifting. After years facing United Methodist congregations in the Bible Belt, the Rev. Harold Bales had an epiphany about this duty — although some might consider his candid vision a kind of ecclesiastical nightmare. Imagine what would happen if a pastor stepped into the pulpit and said something like the... Read more
The powers that be in professional sports know that it’s easier to fire embattled coaches than to push powerful athletes out the door. Pastors know that the same pattern usually holds true when push comes to shove in religious sanctuaries. The sad result is often a vicious cycle of fear, stress, doubt, despair, workaholism, frustration and fatalism. In his book “Counseling Christian Workers,” the late Dr. Louis McBurney — a Mayo Clinic trained psychiatrist known for helping clergy in times of crisis... Read more
List America’s prominent evangelical Protestant voices and the Rev. Rick Warren remains near the top, up in the mix with the Rev. Brian McLaren, Bishop T.D. Jakes, Jim Wallis, the Rev. Tim Keller and others. Many evangelicals, of course, like to argue about who belongs on that list. In recent years, it has become increasingly obvious that the experts are finding it harder to decide who is and who is not an “evangelical” in the first place. “I know what... Read more
‘Twas the Sunday night before the election and the Rev. Robert Jeffress was offering a message that, from his point of view, was both shocking and rather nuanced. His bottom line: If Barack Obama won a second White House term, this would be another sign that the reign of the Antichrist is near. Inquiring minds wanted to know: Was the leader of the highly symbolic First Baptist Church of Dallas suggesting the president was truly You Know Anti-who? “I am... Read more
Terry Mattingly
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