Recently in Religion Category

Yesterday, Mike Jones posted the YouTube video below, upping the ante on the breaking news about Ted Haggard: there were other young men involved with Ted, he says, and their parents knew about it. He does not, and probably will not, explain specifically what he means by "others," and much of the video is dedicated to his visible distress over his own pain and suffering. It sounds like he's had a rough two years--he says he's lost family and friends, and has seen only material loss. (Apparently there was not an audience for his tell-all book and his stage play based on Haggard.) He also says New Life Church has hurt him. 

Ted Haggard has been making the media rounds in advance of next week's release of HBO's "The Trials of Ted Haggard" and an Oprah Winfrey episode featuring Haggard and his family. The documentary captures Haggard's life in the months after his downfall, as he ranges from a weird excitement at starting over to personal misery to anger at his old church for banishing him. His interviews have captured that same range. (The oddest interview so far is the one he gave to Dan Gilgoff, where he thanks House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for her expressions of support after his fall. Pelosi issued a statement denying any such support.) 

It's the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and it doesn't seem right to just say nothing. So consider  this pro-life ad that has been making the rounds: 

Given the massive flap over Obama's selection of Rick Warren to offer the inaugural prayer, there will no doubt be a new flap over Warren's decision to pray his prayer "in Jesus' name." Lots of people on the left were concerned that he would, and on the right were concerned that he wouldn't. He did, but the way he did probably managed to anger both sides all over again. 

I humbly ask this in the name of the one who changed my life--Yeshua, Isa, Jesus, Jesus...

In so saying, Warren did two things at once: He threw down the gauntlet for sectarian prayers in the public square, and he attempted a little ecumenism by saying Jesus' name in the language of the world's three monotheistic faiths: Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. (And also in Spanish, which is a dominant language of our land, and certainly of Warren's Southern California.) 

This thing is stunning. It's the same Bible Abraham Lincoln used in his first inauguration, and the symbolism couldn't be sweeter. I can't find a good photo online that isn't in Flash and can be pasted here, but the best version I've seen is at the Wall Street Journal. 

Steve Waldman has created an archive of inaugural prayers throughout history. In my first read through these prayers, which go back to the 1937 prayer at Franklin D. Roosevelt's inauguration, I was struck by how rarely we see a confessional...

A strangely inspiring quote from Eugene Peterson to begin the new year: From The Jesus Way, in a chapter where Peterson notes Christians' odd tendency to idolize David--he of 8 wives and a harem of concubines, he who killed thousands (including...

The classic debate between Darwinian evolutionism and young-earth creationism is often seen as a moldy conflict between atheism and theism. That's never been quite true--some of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Christians who articulated "The Fundamentals" of the faith (and...

In my post on "Religulous," I made the point that Bill Maher exudes a shockingly self-righteous certitude in his own position--and at the movie's end, literally preaches a gospel of Maherism and warns doom for all who don't see his...

I'm way late to this, but just saw it last night and wanted to weigh in briefly. I had planned to address several of the key problems, as well as acknowledge its (few) pleasures as a movie, but Steve Waldman did...

Cameron Strang, the publisher of Relevant Magazine and the subject of much discussion this summer when he first accepted, then declined an invitation to pray at the Democratic National Convention, posted an informal poll question in his Facebook and Twitter...

This is pretty remarkable--you'd think that Max Lucado, of all pastors, would offer an encouraging word, delivered with a smile, about the economic woes facing people today. But instead, he delivers nothing short of a lamentation. The message, essentially, is...

I admire Dick Staub a lot, and a few years ago had the pleasure of signing books in his company when we both had titles out from the same publisher and were joined in a conference booth. He's hilarious and smart....