Rhetoric detached from morality harms people and societies.
Political talk has had an ugly side, but things are getting worse. Hateful talk is no longer underground, but practiced openly and shamelessly. Mainstream politicians are more willing to tolerate association with fringe rhetoric.
Why is this so?
Is There a Breakdown in Shared Ethics?
It is hard to talk to ...
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Many have probably heard of the tragic news of the death of Annie Le, a Ph.D. student in medicine at Yale University. This hits especially close to me because Yale is my alma mater, and recently I even worked as a chaplain there for a year (in 2007-08). I remember in our Yale chaplains’ meetings that we had discussed what would our response be if there were a tragedy on cam...
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One of the most famous things St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) never said was,
Preach the Gospel
at All Times.
When Necessary,
Use Words.
It certainly sounds like the kind of thing Francis would have said, and you can buy it on plaques and bumper stickers to your heart's content. But he never actually said it, apparently.
The phrase is often quoted these days,...
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Today (September 14) is the day Dante Alighieri (ca. 1265 – 1321) died. Dante, author of the three-part Divine Comedy, was proud to be Italian: he wrote about the politics of Italy, chronicled his love-hate relationship with Florence, and perhaps most significantly, he wrote his masterpiece in Italian. That was a major decision in the 14th century. It meant very few people ou...
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Featured Essay
A great many people idolize professional athletes. Watching a professional athlete drive a golf ball 300 yards to the pin, dunk a basketball, serve a tennis ball at over 120 miles an hour or pass for a touchdown is impressive. But, why do world-class athletic abilities so often lead to world class arrogance? Does athletic competition bring out the worst in us as humans? Are pro...
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I'm no Roman Catholic but I can certainly appreciate many of the things that come out of the Vatican. So much so, in fact, that I subscribe to the daily e-mail update from the Vatican Information Service. Nothing like knowing what Benedict XVI is up to each day! More importantly, I find out about events and initiatives that, in my view, should be important to all Christians. Th...
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Some New York-area rabbis are planning to bring weapons to High Holy Day services this month to guard against terrorist threats. In June, a Kentucky pastor invited his congregation members to bring their firearms to church to celebrate the Second Amendment.
Do weapons belong in worship? Should clergy be armed? Do the Ten Commandments trump the Second Amendment?
Weapons do...
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We have been brought to the point where we both can and must get our life's priorities straight. From current Christian publications you might think that the most vital issue for any real or would-be Christian in the world today is church union, or social witness, or dialogue with other Christians and other faiths, or refuting this or that -ism, or developing a Christian philos...
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Today (September 8 ) is the birthday of Peter Martyr Vermigli (1499-1562), a Protestant Reformer born and trained in Italy, later active in England and Switzerland. Though he was forced to move from city to city and was sometimes in danger, Peter did not in fact become a martyr. "Martyr" was not a title, but was actually his given name, after a 13th-century saint (who earned th...
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Featured Essay
There’s something funny about professors who teach old books being involved in new media. That’s what Scriptorium Daily is, of course – people talking about old stuff in a new venue. It’s funny because of what conventional wisdom leads us to believe – that the more old books we read, the more inclined we are to be stuck in the past.
Exhibit 1 to the contrary is th...
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Having traveled all over the world, I have distilled my travel advice down to this: whenever I go to a new place, there are five things I always look for (in no particular order) that help me get a handle on the place:
1) A religious site. I look for a mosque, temple, church, synagogue, cathedral, something that expresses the belief system of the place. India especially wa...
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The Texas Board of Education, the nation's second largest purchaser of public school textbooks, is revising its K-12 social studies curriculum and deciding how to characterize religion's influence on American history. Three consultants have recommended emphasizing the roles of the Bible, Christianity and the civic virtue of religion.
While installing some operating software,...
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