Posted in Uncategorized on Jun 10th, 2010
The Claremont School of Theology is in the news for its ambitious plans to create a new interdisciplinary theology program: At a press conference this morning, we announced our agreement to co-create the first graduate consortium in the world that will provide theological education for Christians, Jews, Muslims, as well as students from other faith [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jun 8th, 2010
Times aren’t just tough for mortgage brokers and incumbent Senators. No, the economic downturn has hit closer to home (assuming you live near a church): According to the Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, there are more than 600,000 ministers in the United States but only 338,000 churches. Many of those are small churches that [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jun 7th, 2010
A recent poll in the UK revealed that the man on the street doesn’t think much of Islam: # 58% associate Islam with extremism # 50% associate Islam with terrorism # Just 13% associate Islam with peace Part of the problem is that people are getting information from completely biased sources: # 57% obtain most [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jun 6th, 2010
Whether you’re in favor of interfaith marriage or opposed to interfaith marriage, the Washington Post has got both good and bad news for you. First, the good (or bad) news: interfaith marriages are occurring at higher rates than ever! The bad (or good) news: they’re also failing at higher rates than ever! The former shouldn’t [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Apr 25th, 2010
At this point you are probably well aware of tomorrow’s Boobquake, in which women (and any chubby men that feel like participating) will flaunt their breasts to test an Iranian cleric’s theory that immodest dress causes earthquakes. However, if you look carefully, his claim is slightly different: The prayer leader, Hojatoleslam Kazim Sadeghi, says women [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Apr 21st, 2010
It’s hard to watch the news without hearing all about Goldman Sachs. It’s almost enough to make you wish for another Tiger Woods sex scandal, or some new lurid developments in the Amanda Knox case, or a Jon and Kate reconcilation, or maybe some sort of record-breaking “enneamom.” Nonetheless, it seemed worth investigating whether there [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Apr 10th, 2010
One common complaint levied by those of us who write hilarious books mocking religion concerns the huge number of problems created by people trying to live life in the 21st century using rules written down by cavemen many centuries ago, long before the invention of indoor plumbing, refrigeration, internal combustion engines, the Nintendo Wii, “organic” [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Apr 4th, 2010
Of all the holidays, I think Easter might be my favorite. How can you not feel a bit awed when you think about how Jesus so loved the world that he came back from the dead in order to molest deaf children? Unfortunately, the whole celebration is under a bit of a cloud this year, [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Mar 25th, 2010
Having settled the whole Irish abuse situation to everyone’s satisfaction, Pope Benedict has shifted his focus back to the delicate interplay between science and religion: There is no opposition between faith and science, says Benedict XVI, who proposed the example of St. Albert the Great to illustrate this truth. Well, of course! What better way [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Mar 22nd, 2010
Wow. I’ve been super-busy lobbying my congresspersons to send free $250 checks to old people, and they’ve finally come through, which means I can start again following news that isn’t about giving free checks to old people. Just in time, it turns out, because it looks like there’s a lot going on. For instance, the [...]
