Requiring a Bit Of An Adjustment: Explaining the Santo Daime Church
Explaining Santo Daime as a very different type of religious practice, and perhaps expand the tent for what most would consider a religion
Tagged: faith
One Is the Loneliest Number
If there is not a one atop the denominator, there is no longer a declaration of The Faith; instead, adherents are reduced to arguing probabilities.
I Miss Prayer
It is completely banal in its utter ordinariness, and it is vital for precisely that reason. Prayer provides us with value and meaning in a desperate age.
Too Much Faith Following the Wrong Leader
Walk softly and carry a big spiritual stick, but the stick is called discernment and is used just as much to ward off people who claim to be of faith as those who are openly against faith.
Churches In the Hands of an Angry God
The quick and easy response is that Christians really are guilty of everything attributed to them. But this explanation does not get at the heart of the issue.
The Wager
Pascal wrote, “Too much and too little wine. Give him none, he cannot find truth; give him too much, the same,” so I recommend a reading this with a drink or two.
Pope Francis Is Telling Catholics to Doubt the Church – That’s Good!
In his first piece at The Week, Kyle Cupp explains why Pope Francis is right to encourage doubt about God and the Church.
Living By Faith, Dwelling In Doubt: A Conversation
Kyle Cupp and Tod Kelly discuss Kyle’s new book. Along the way, Kyle waxes on his approach to faith and doubt, along with his daughter, the Pope, abortion, Paul Ricoeur, Job, and Firefly.
Deconstructing Religious Authority
Religious authority ultimately requires not only trust in the office of authority, but also in the specific individuals who hold that office.
The Pope’s Subversive Encyclical?
Over at Vox Nova, I note an interesting subtlety in the pope’s new encyclical letter, which compares faith to both light and darkness and to both seeing and not seeing.
Nepotism!
The charming and insightful Darlene McLeod was recently published in Geez, asking a few questions:
The Finest School
“I was graduated from the finest school, which is that of the love between a parent and a child. Though the world is constructed to serve glory, success, and strength, one loves one’s parents...
My Secularism, Unraveling
Though a regular churchgoer and on most days a religious believer, I subscribe to the secularist principle that church and state ought to be kept separate. I don’t want government dictating religious belief and...
Whose Religious Liberty? What Value Pluralism? What Attention Span?
Caveat: I know that this is off-message and we’re all supposed to be fighting over whether or not Paul Ryan is a lunatic or a fiscal hawk and so on and so forth. I know...
Can We Have Post-Modern Faith?
A new study out of the University of Chicago shows, in its words, a “modest” decline of belief in God globally, with dramatic variations among individual countries. I don’t want to argue about the...
Sock Puppets: Not Just for Kids Anymore
[Updated below] Dear Readers: We have uncovered overwhelming evidence of no fewer than 8 sockpuppets operated by a single individual, each with its own persona. In the process, we have also determined that our...
Living According to a Story
By Kyle Cupp I was born to a Buddhist father and a somewhat lapsed Catholic mother, so you could say I had a divergent and confusing theological upbringing. Essentially I heard two different stories...
Modernity, Christianity and Islam
I linked to this earlier, but amateur history buffs will find Cato Unbound’s discussion on the origins of modernity pretty fascinating. The central point of contention is the so-called “first cause” of modernity –...
faux serious introspection
Daniel Larison takes issue with Obama’s Notre Dame speech and especially Obama’s use of doubt, which Larison maintains is not a quality, but rather “a function of a mind clouded by the passions”. Doubt,...
Progressive Traditionalism?
I read Leviticus last year while studying Judaism and I noticed exactly the same thing Ron Beasley is on to in this post. The problem with fundamentalism is it can’t really operate in the...
