commentary
Why are so many famous and ordinary people’s lives imploding?
By Eric Geiger — May 1, 2018
(RNS) — Well-respected community leaders, coaches, and pastors seem to be imploding at epidemic levels. Stories of abuse, affairs, lapses in integrity, and self-destructive behaviors seem to fill our news feeds at a relentless and alarming pace. We should not be surprised.
How does Congress have chaplains without violating the separation of church and state?
By The Conversation — May 1, 2018
The present controversy over fired House Chaplain Pat Conroy offers a unique opportunity to ask broader questions about why the U.S. Congress employs chaplains and what they do.
Same-sex marriage garners support among most American religious groups, study shows
By Jana Riess — May 1, 2018
(RNS) — Twice as many Americans now favor same-sex marriage as oppose it, by 61 percent to 30 percent.
James Cone, the cross, and the lynching memorial
By Jemar Tisby — April 30, 2018
(RNS) — James Cone refused to assign any authenticity to a religion that claimed to be Christian but did not address the liberation of black people from white supremacy.
I did research at Rajneeshpuram, and here is what I learned
By The Conversation — April 30, 2018
A scholar visited Rajneeshpuram and met the many highly accomplished men and women who became devotees of the controversial guru whose story is now the subject of the Netflix docu-series "Wild, Wild Country."
Paul Ryan doesn’t have a prayer
By Jacob Lupfer — April 27, 2018
(RNS) — The House speaker should not capitulate to the most odious and extreme impulses of his caucus. (Commentary)
Pope Francis, the spiritual guide
By Thomas Reese — April 26, 2018
(RNS) — The pope's latest apostolic exhortation, 'Gaudete et Exultate,' is a rich and powerful message easily accessible to the people of our time from the world’s preeminent spiritual guide.
You can push for public displays of the Bible. Better yet, read it.
By Tom Krattenmaker — April 26, 2018
(RNS) — Our rampant biblical illiteracy helps explain why those most passionate about pushing the Bible in settings of dubious appropriateness (like a Navy hospital in Japan) often press their case in deeply unbiblical ways. (Commentary)
People of faith should support prison reform legislation
By Abraham Cooper — April 26, 2018
(RNS) — Writing together, as an Orthodox rabbi and a Christian minister, we feel deeply for victims of crime, and we take comfort in our American system that demands justice for those who violate the rule of law. But we also affirm these efforts to reform a prison system that invests too little money and too little energy in rehabilitation programs for inmates and for those re-entering society.
Why this conservative bastion chose a liberal evangelical icon for its commencement speech
By Adam Laats — April 25, 2018
(The Conversation) — The long-standing dream of conservative evangelical universities like Liberty is to be more than a niche school, writes Adam Laats.
A new American phase for Francis
By Massimo Faggioli — April 25, 2018
(RNS) — Five years since Francis became pope, and nearly three since he made his first visit to the U.S., his relationship with U.S. Catholics is entering a new phase, one in which the divide that separates Catholics on either side of the culture wars has hardened.
Trump’s Muslim ban is an affront to American values
By Rachel K. Laser — April 25, 2018
(RNS) — The Muslim ban’s true intent is to narrow the space for religious diversity in our country and please those who seek to re-establish Christian hegemony in American religious life.
The lesson of the loaves and fishes — lost on the House Agriculture Committee
By James H. Willis — April 24, 2018
(RNS) — The hoarding of the nation's abundance comes at a cost.
What Comey learned from theologian Reinhold Niebuhr about ethical leadership
By Christopher Beem — April 24, 2018
(The Conversation) — Reviewers have noted the influence of one particular 20th-century American Christian philosopher in James' Comey's new book: Reinhold Niebuhr.
Redefining religious freedom as religious privilege
By Andrew L. Seidel — April 23, 2018
(RNS) — The First Amendment Defense Act seeks to upend an enduring understanding of our rights.
