Religion

One of the great fears that parents and church leaders have about their youth engaging in interfaith dialog is that they will lose their connection to their own religion and will end up rejecting and leaving their faith, maybe even converting to another religion as a result. My experience as a Christian pastor has been just the opposite -- I have watched young people become stronger in their own faith through exposure to other traditions.

Personal relationships matter a great deal… more

Last week’s posthumous publication of Mother Teresa’s private letters has sparked a debate on the nature of saintliness and, by extension, what it means to be good. The letters, which she had asked to be destroyed, reveal a complex woman who was tormented by her faith and suffered long periods of religious doubt and spiritual emptiness.

Two years after her death in 1997, a Gallup poll asked Americans to name the people they most admired from the 20th century. Not surprisingly,… more

The Call of Duty -- and Destiny

In one of the great epics of Western literature, the hero, confronted by numerous and powerful enemies, temporarily gives in to weakness and self-pity. “I wish,” he sighs, “none of this had happened.” The hero’s wise adviser responds, “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide.” The old man continues, “There are other forces at work in this world ... besides the will of evil.”… more

Having lived in Israel for the past 15 years and now being on a brief sabbatical in Washington DC, the name Melanie Phillips, apparently known in London, is unfamiliar to me. That lack of familiarity is, it seems, not mutual, as Ms Phillips saw fit to attack me on these pages last week as being "dangerous", "naive", and an "idiot". Her style is not mine and my response will address substance, rather than ugly personal slurs.

My apparent "crime"… more

Americans of all political stripes tend to see what they want to see in the European Union. For progressives, its example is supposed to show how a robust welfare state, including universal health care, is consistent with prosperity. It’s also supposed to show how separation of church and state, multilateralism, multiculturalism, opposition to the death penalty, embrace of gay marriage, state-sponsored preschool, gun control, the Kyoto Treaty, and other progressive causes are all consistent with a just and sustainable civilization… more

Schwartz Fellow
Eliza Griswold is a writer who focuses on conflict, human rights, and religion. Her reportage and analyses have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Harper’s Magazine, and The New Republic, among other publications. She was a 2007 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and is the recipient… more

None of us can control our ancestors. Like our children, they have minds of their own and invariably refuse to do our bidding. Presidential ancestors are especially unruly — they are numerous and easily discovered, and they often act in ways unbecoming to the high station of their descendants.

Take George Bush. By whom I mean George Bush (1796-1859), first cousin of the president’s great-great-great-grandfather. It would be hard to find a more unlikely forebear. G.B. No. 1 was not… more

The 21st century will be the century of the faith line -- a line that does not divide Christians and Muslims or Hindus and Jews, but religious pluralists and religious totalitarians. America faces an emerging conflict within its family and its foreign policy between those who seek common ground and those who seek to divide.

In his new book, Acts of Faith, Muslim-American writer Eboo Patel, the Executive Director of the Interfaith Youth Core, offers a compelling theory of… more

There has to be an Imus event every once in a while. Ethnicity being the volatile thing it is, gratuitously inflammatory remarks have to be discouraged, so bounds of acceptable speech have to be clarified. Clarity comes when, inevitably, someone oversteps and gets slapped down.

Maybe this particular boundary could have been clarified with less punishment, given how abjectly Don Imus has apologized. Still, there had to be a price, and, compared with the prices paid in some multiethnic societies (remember… more

Jesus knew viral marketing.

In the Gospel of Mark, the disciple John complains that nondisciples are selling bootlegged copies of Jesus’ miraculous powers. ‘‘Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.”

Jesus tells John to quit obsessing about the intellectual property and to focus on getting the brand out. ‘‘Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be… more