Category: Religion

The Pope’s Subversive Encyclical?

The Pope’s Subversive Encyclical?

Over at Vox Nova, I note an interesting subtlety in the pope’s new encyclical letter, which compares faith to both light and darkness and to both seeing and not seeing.

Questioning Faith

Questioning Faith

(Cross-posted on the Front Page) Asking questions is dangerous business.  I have friends and acquaintances who, after completing an inquisition into their own religious beliefs, forsook their religion, kicked the dust from their feet,...

Deconstructing the Afterlife

Deconstructing the Afterlife

As I get older, watching family, friends and strangers pass into the unknown, I think more about death and my own passage into it.  The more I contemplate this eventuality, the less satisfied I...

What Distinguishes a Christian?

What Distinguishes a Christian?

I wondered about this question while catching a glimpse of the cardinals processing into the conclave, each one speaking Latin in a particular accent.  Sure, this ritual had its uniqueness in the world of...

How Cruel is Your God?

How Cruel is Your God?

I’m endlessly fascinated by how people relate to God by way of images and figures that are important to them.  Their preferred images of God may tell us more about their religiosity and about...

Sin and Safe Religion

Sin and Safe Religion

In college I knew of young men who were apprehensive about kissing their girlfriends because they might have a lustful thought. One individual of my acquaintance, for this same reason, refused to hold hands...

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