Religion

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 able soon afterward to speak evil of me.” Jesus adds, ‘‘Whoever is not against us is for us.”

For all the bluster about the United States’ democratization policy, military action remains America’s principal weapon for confronting Islamist extremism. In many parts of the world, U.S. forces have teamed with the security and intelligence services of Muslim states to "take the fight to the enemy" and root out common foes. Muslim regimes from North Africa to Asia had been feeling the heat well before September 11 from Islamist groups that had labeled them apostate.

Abstract: Before the crucial upcoming debate over reauthorization of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and all of the 10,000 general health reform questions that this discussion will engender, we should consider one fundamental moral question, for our answer will reveal the kinds of policies we actually want to pursue: Who should be allowed to sit at our health care table of plenty?

The National Prayer Breakfast, an annual gathering of inspiring speeches and solemn moments of silence, recently drew President Bush and hundreds of lawmakers when it was held in Washington. This year, the event was unusual in that it was attended by much of what is the most religiously diverse Congress in American history.

The 110th Congress includes one Muslim and two Buddhists. The U.S. Senate is now led by a Mormon. All of these are firsts. The new Congress also includes more Jews than Lutherans, Congregationalists or Episcopalians.

So Christmas has survived yet another year.

Yes, there has been a war on Christmas, fought by a few lefty lawyers who managed to buffalo some multiculturalist bureaucrats and politicians. But it’s been a losing war:

First, and most obviously, there’s the steadfast religiosity of the American people; polls routinely show that 90 percent of Americans believe in God. Secular progressives have done their best to knock the faith out of people, but it doesn’t seem to be working.

When Howard Grossman moved to the northeastern Pennsylvania town of Wilkes-Barre 35 years ago, it was a thriving industrial city with a substantial, long-established Jewish community. Today, anyone who visits Wilkes-Barre cannot help but come away with the impression that this town of 43,000 has seen better days, and will perhaps see not too grand a future.

It's a paradox of our time that the Amish, arguably the least technological people in America, have nevertheless proven to be extraordinarily effective at communicating what they believe. In a time of proliferating techno-clutter, they got their message across the old-fashioned way: through the blood sacrifice of martyrs.

In a radio interview last week, prominent evangelical activist James Dobson said that Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith "could pose a serious obstacle" if he decided to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. Dobson said he thought that conservative Christians wouldn’t feel comfortable casting a ballot for a Mormon. Chances are, he’s wrong.

Over one million Lebanese gathered in a vast square in a southern Beirut suburb on Sept. 22 to celebrate their country’s largely successful campaign against Israel. Seyid Hassan Nasrallah, secretary-general of Hizballah, risked his life by appearing in public after Israeli leaders had sworn to kill him, and spoke to his adoring supporters in Lebanon and around the world.

Alastair Crooke is considered the foremost international expert on Hamas. As EU Security Envoy under Javier Solana during the Second Intifada Crooke mediated with all the Palestinian political and armed factions, including ending the Bethlehem Church of the Nativity siege. Crooke worked for more than two decades in the broader Middle East region, including as a member of the Senator Mitchell Fact Finding Committee and a negotiator between Israeli security forces and Palestinian factions such as Hamas.