What do Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Lisa Marie Presley, Mary Bono, Oliver Stone, Brad Pitt, Sharon Stone, and a host of other actors, musicians, and writers have in common? Maybe you guessed it. They are, or have been, adherents of the Church of Scientology. More »

Bruce Feiler’s new book “America’s Prophet: Moses and the American Story” has provided food for thought with his hypothesis that one figure inspired more Americans than any other: Moses. Like Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code,” the book aims to engage the reader into a new paradigm of thought about the character of religious figures. More »

I have heard endless remarks from intelligent adults that a fetus is either “a blob of tissue,” “part of the woman’s body,” “not human,” and explanations such as “we’re just animals,” “an effective method of population control,” or “simply nothing to concern ourselves with.” More »

There is no corroborating evidence from the contemporaneous written record of other cultures to the Bible that the primal patriarch of Judaism, Abraham, existed. The name, yes; the person, no. Yet the Bible and the Koran accept his existence as historical fact. Although the biblical stories about Abram, or Abraham, often contain didactic moral tales about the man and his descendants, both the Torah and the Koran have different takes on “who was to inherit what” of the Promised Land. More »

The term “purgatory” comes from the infinitive form of the Latin purgare, to purify. The belief in purgatory (or state of purgation following the death of an individual) is rooted in Roman Catholic tradition. Although the early apostolic Church was not focused on purgatory, nor was there any directly recorded mention of such a place or condition in apostolic times, the concept and tradition of it grew in the writings of the early church fathers. More »

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president, has been called many things by the West. “Crazy and looney” might come to mind. However, this leader of over 66 million people has a strange world view, at least to many in the West. More »

I don’t know how many times I’ve referred to the fact that I served as a teacher and administrator in public and private schools, but over the four decades that I have there have been many changes in our country. The U. S. Supreme Court issued two bans on prayer in public schools. The first ban came in 1962 and the second was issued in 1963, the year I began teaching. More »

I think most of us have had the experience of members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses ringing our doorbell and offering us literature about their religion — often a copy of the current “Watchtower.” I always welcome them and try to engage them in discussion, because as a theologian I admire their evangelizing efforts. More »

There has been a steady focus for years on whether a political party or politician supports abortion here in the U.S. The Democratic party’s platform is pro-choice and the Republican party’s is pro-life. However, as I cited in a previous post, the country is moving more toward a pro-life position, with more than half the population expressing disagreement with the practice. However, the abortion scenario abroad is mind-boggling. More »

According to the 2005 survey of Encyclopedia Britannica, the vast majority of religious and spiritual adherents follow Christianity (33% of world population), Islam (20%), Hinduism (13%), Chinese folk religion (6.3%) or Buddhism (5.9%). The irreligious and atheists make up about 14%, and about 4% follow indigenous tribal religions. More »