In recent days and weeks, much ink has been used and many electrons have been generated to bemoan the status of Taglit-Birthright Israel trips. The current kerfuffle is the result of the walkout from their Birthright trip of students affiliated with the group IfNotNow (a horrible play on the wise words of the rabbinical sage […]
After the collapse of Chavism, which way will Latin America turn? It wasn’t long ago that Venezuela, led by a fiery caudillo and dedicated to spreading its brand of populist super-socialism, boosted allies’ economies near and far with petrodollars. Hugo Chavez was spreading his Bolivarian revolution all over and times were good. No más. Spending […]
I am the sort of man the Catholic Church says shouldn’t be a priest. I experience what the Vatican calls “deep-seated homosexual tendencies,” which, according to the Church, make me an unsuitable candidate for the priesthood. The 2005 Vatican instruction on the question of homosexuality and the priesthood states this clearly: “The Church, while profoundly […]
It is time for clergy and laity to begin a movement for the purification of the Church. The shameful sexual sins and crimes of clergy—including cardinals, bishops, and priests—can no longer be tolerated. Tolerance is precisely what has allowed these problems to multiply for decades and persist up to today. As Fr. Thomas Berg recently explained, […]
NANYANG, CHINA The 62-year-old Chinese shopkeeper had waited nearly his entire adult life to see his dream of building a church come true — a brick house with a sunny courtyard and spacious hall with room for 200 believers. But in March, about a dozen police officers and local officials suddenly showed up at the […]
Over the last reporting decade the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) has lost more than 1 million members or 25% of membership, now down to 3.5 million, from 4.7 million ten years ago. At this rate of decline the denomination won’t exist in 30 years or so. Newly elected ELCA bishops might be expected […]
From the op-ed pages of the New York Times comes “The Secret History of Leviticus,” an improbable essay by Idan Dershowitz. A scholar of the Hebrew Bible and a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows, Dershowitz has written for the Times a popular version of the academic argument he published recently in the […]
In a move that should surprise no one, Pope Francis has once again appeared to contradict two millennia of clear and consistent scriptural and Catholic teaching. The Vatican has announced that the Catechism of the Catholic Church will be changed to declare the death penalty “inadmissible” given the “inviolability and dignity of the person” as […]
Israel gathers at Sinai on the third day of the third month after leaving Egypt (Exod. 19:16). From the cloud, Yahweh speaks what the Bible calls the “Ten Words” (Exod. 34:28; Deut. 4:13). He has spoken ten words before. “And Elohim spoke” occurs ten times in the creation account. And the Lord has spoken on […]
I was one of a group of black faith leaders from inner cities who attended a meeting with President Trump at the White House Wednesday to talk about the importance of the church in building community – especially in the area of prison reform and workforce development for former prisoners. Unfortunately, the political and cultural […]
