Tom Farrow, a former FBI agent, is driving through the hollows, hillocks, and cow ponds of Cocke County, on the Appalachian side of Tennessee. Cell phone service blinks in and out between the hills. It’s a beautiful place, an interplay of mountains and farmland, but several years ago it teemed with corruption. Back in 2005,…
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Last month liberal Catholics were upset over House Republican budget chief Paul Ryan using a Georgetown University platform to defend his hard-line fiscal plan as a natural outgrowth of his Catholic faith. Dozens of Georgetown faculty and administrators wrote a letter welcoming Ryan but blasting his understanding of Catholic teaching and asking him to explain…
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Why do you want to fight in the war? The blunt question sprang suddenly into Jasmin’s mind, surprising the spiritually seeking Croatian soldier with its clarity. It happened in 1991, at the start of the war in the former Yugoslavia. He responded, “I want to fight for good, to defend my country. I want to…
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I’ve read more than once the claim that most early Christians were universalists. And this is occasionally supported by the further opinion that several early (first six centuries) theological schools were universalist in their teaching. This seems implausible to me. However, I’m certainly not someone who is a student of the history of the early…
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Apparent White House division over gay marriage – with Vice President Joe Biden saying Sunday that he is “absolutely comfortable” with the idea, going further than President Obama has on the issue – mirrors a nation that is evenly divided on the matter. Recent polls show that about half of Americans favor legalized gay marriage,…
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Muslims have become the third-largest religious group in the state after Roman Catholics and independent evangelicals. Not to mention, the fastest-growing one. That’s according to a census of American religious congregations unveiled Tuesday in Chicago. This year, for the first time, the nationwide aggregation of religious traditions, dubbed the “Religion Census,” counted nondenominational evangelical congregations,…
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Are we who we say we are? This is, or should be, the question of the hour — the question that ought to be at the center of our lives, drawing on and demonstrating our purpose. All the more so now, during an election season in which the White House has instituted a policy that…
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Nonbelievers are growing in number. So why are they still sitting in the next pew with their kids? Ross Harvey wedged himself into the back pew of the North Shore Unitarian Church in North Vancouver, British Columbia, as a visiting gospel choir filled the vaulted nave with soaring harmonies. Harvey, whose white T-shirt beneath a…
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After an emotional debate, Methodists at a national legislative meeting Thursday upheld the denomination’s policy that same-sex relationships are “incompatible with Christian teaching.” Delegates at the General Conference voted by about 60% to 40% against softening the language on homosexuality in their Book of Discipline, which contains church laws and doctrine. The meeting is held…
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When they step away from the roar of the engines, the hairpin turns and the adrenaline-fueled competition, you might be surprised at how NASCAR drivers spend their spare time. Furniture Row Racing’s Regan Smith will be driving the #78 National Day of Prayer car at Talladega Superspeedway this coming weekend. “The Furniture Row racing team…
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