Category: Religion & Society

Religion & Society

Things an Atheist Should Know Before He Tells Christians Things They Should Know Before Talking to an Atheist

Posted on by John W Gillis / 2 Comments

I came across a tease tonight on the WordPress.com dashboard for a post entitled “Things Christians Should Know Before Talking to an Atheist” and, having more curiosity than prudence, I bit on it. It turned out to be from a blog called Proud Atheists, written by an atheist who either thought he had some sage advice for Christians who might be inclined to try to convert him, or perhaps he was only looking for pats on the back from his fellow atheists for his cleverness. I would have given him the benefit of the doubt and assumed the former, bu...

Religion & Society

Shop ‘Till You Get Dropped

Posted on by John W Gillis / 3 Comments

The “holiday” feeding frenzy is off to an inauspicious start today. The day began, in Nassau County, New York, with a 34-year-old WalMart employee being trampled to death by a mob of early-morning deal seekers who broke down the doors of the building in an earnest attempt to score the very first discounted gizmos. Not to be outdone by the east coasters, a pair of men in a California Toys “R” Us store gunned each other down after their female companions entered into fisticuffs (in front of their children). The corporate offices of ...

Religion & Society

Fraudulent? Does That Matter?

Posted on by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

Few things make me feel like I was born on the wrong planet as much as the blatant denial of the meaning and authority of reality – that is to say, the reality of objective truth. This is truly a malady of modern human reason, and it seems to be rampant – maybe even epidemic. There are days I’m sure I’ve seen everything, then there are days, and I think this is one of those days, when I’m almost afraid to look out the window at the world for fear of the lunacy I might encounter. I came across a startling statement in a Bosto...

Religion & Society

An All-Too Common Word

Posted on by John W Gillis / 1 Comment

Yale Divinity School last week hosted “Loving God and Neighbor in Word and Deed: Implications for Christians and Muslims,” a conference on global inter-faith dialog, which was a follow-up to a written dialog commonly referred to as “A Common Word,” started back in late 2006 by several dozen Muslim leaders responding in an open letter to Pope Benedict XVI regarding Benedict’s famous University of Regensburg address, in which he infamously used some quotes from an obscure Byzantine text of Emperor Manuel II Paleologus to help ...

Religion & Society

Benedict’s Challenge to American Anti-Authoritarianism

Posted on by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

Pope Benedict XVI’s Yankee Stadium homily last Sunday was quite a celebration of American Catholicism, but the pontiff never strayed far from his theme of the unchanging need for faithful Christians, as a community rooted in the apostolic heritage, to be a sign of the gospel’s hope for mankind in the face of sin and death, through bearing witness to the unity of the truth found in the Word of God, revealed in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. This rootedness is not something Benedict sees simply in the hierarchical form of the Church (even if ...

Religion & Society

Good Friday Intercessions

Posted on by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

While listening to the general intercessions today during the Good Friday liturgy, I couldn’t help but think about all the hubbub that was raised recently when Pope Benedict made the Latin-rite Mass more widely available. I had some good, mentally stable friends tell me that the Pope’s gesture signaled the beginning of the end of the Second Vatican Council reforms; that the priests would soon turn their backs – literally and figuratively – on the people; that the Church was about to become a fortress of spiritual repression, where...