From Christianity Today: President Bush faces a defining question of morality on which he has yet to receive any discernible guidance from the faith-based coalition that helped put him in office. The question: whether it is ever right for Americans to inflict cruel and degrading treatment on suspected terrorist detainees. We read credible reports—some from…

I once heard or read a story that Stanley Hauerwas, at a panel on the ethics of scientific research using aborted fetuses, asked a proponent of the research, “If it turned out that fetuses were a delicacy, would it be okay to eat them?” Obviously a kind of reductio ad absurdum, right? Well, the problem…

Brendan O’Neill skewers what he says is a new breed of rock stars who suck up to politicians, avoid drink and drugs, and generally have evacuated rock music of any trace of rebelliousness: When Noel Gallagher of Oasis visited Downing Street in July 1997 to congratulate the incumbent New Labour regime on its stunning victory,…

I’m re-reading William Placher’s The Domestication of Transcendence. His argument, in a nutshell, is that, starting in about the 17th century, thinking about God moved sharply away from an emphasis on mystery and the inadequacy of all human language and concepts when applied to God (as he finds in St. Thomas Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin)…

This interesting essay (via Kevin Carson) argues that Greens and Libertarians have enough in common, philosophically and politically, to forge an alliance.

Camassia on her Mennonite church and the Real Presence. Brandon on what it means to respect other people’s beliefs. Malcin Horton on the “Caelum & Terra” vision.

John Allen has a piece in the National Catholic Reporter on the Taizé community in the aftermath of the murder of its leader Brother Roger Schutz. (via Amy Welborn) There is still debate about Taizé, but Schutz and the community he founded are nevertheless seen by millions of Christians as prophets of the ecumenical dream,…

Americans often assume that European-style welfare states are inherently unworkable and unstable and that they must lead in the long run to high unemployment and low economic growth. This article disputes that view, saying that there are important differences between the generous welfare states of Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland and their counterparts in…

“Fr. Jape” has a post on the need to inculcate habits of devotion and piety, not just an intellectual “world-view” (as seems to be popular now in some circles), in order to pass the faith on to the next generation. As an adult convert (or adult “re-lapsed” Christian depending on how you look at it)…

Here’s the Lutheran World Relief page for donations of aid for victims of the earthquake in South Asia. No doubt all of your more reputable charities are doing similar things.