Do not be mismatched with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and lawlessness have in common? Or what partnership is there between light and darkness? ANOTHER ECHO OF THE ABUSE SCANDAL IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH involving priests and bishops in the Catholic Church will be brought into the light again on the to East Timor. As the Associated Press story to which I've linked you reports, "(T)he church in East Timor today is stronger than ever, with most downplaying, doubting or dismissing the claims against (Bishop Carlos Ximenes) Belo and those against a popular American missionary who confessed ..read more

: You can get an email with a link to my blog every time it publishes by registering They understand that their religious beliefs require some kind of response to help fix this wounded world, and they have chosen to make sure America's corporations (well, some of them, anyway) are considering matters of economic justice as they also make money for their shareholders. As the AP reports, the sisters "have taken on the likes of Google, Target and Citigroup — calling on major companies to do everything from AI oversight to measuring pesticides to respecting the rights of Indigenous people." To whi ..read more

) and I were teaching different classes at the same time at in northern New Mexico, we had a conversation that led me to rethink the idea of " , which I wrote about I find that encouraging because recently I've given a couple of talks to different church groups about this subject and have used a book called : My friend from boyhood, Markandey Katju, a former justice on India's Supreme Court, has written God in their lives. So they're searching. , to acknowledge the role that , have had in creating and maintaining Christian Nationalism, which I describe as being rooted in the unbiblical idea th ..read more

: You can get an email with a link to my blog every time it publishes by registering Yet another investigation into the mysterious , which some people think is the burial cloth of Jesus, has been completed. To the surprise of many, as describes how artificial intelligence has been used to show us the face of the man on the Shroud of Turin. To me, the image looks a little too much like a white man who has had a hard day wrestling cattle, but I'll check that out if and when I get to see Jesus. to a Zoom gathering (about an hour long) in which Mindy Corporon and I participated a few days ago. The ..read more

WHY DOES THE STORY OF JESUS' ON EARTH MATTER?  to tell his readers why I'm wrong. See if you think he makes sense.) about the historical Jesus of Nazareth and his relationship to current Christianity. The piece remains amazingly relevant as it explores the thorny question of how much of Jesus' life on Earth his current followers need to know to be able to follow him as savior and a member of the Holy Trinity. The author, an Australian Jesuit priest who died recently, wrote this in the piece: "First, Jesus must not be turned into a contemporary. He is rightly viewed within the historical f ..read more

: My boyhood friend from India, Markandey Katju, has written WHICH OF THE MANY CHRISTIANITIES DO THEY MEAN? , if it comes to that. ," which happened just a few weeks ago as part of our "Front Porch" concert series, and we were reminded again about the fabulous variety and skill of poets from our area. about the staying power of history. He included me (though his description of me could use a bit of reworking) and asked me to post it here. So I am ..read more

: You can get an email with a link to my blog every time it publishes by registering We sometimes hear that someone who has reached a difficult goal has found the "Holy Grail." The term, as ," a term Jewish people use to mean "repair the world." (And also how you experience God's presence in the world.) shows, is full of religious meaning and connections. But as participation in institutional religion declines in the U.S., we have begun to lose a cultural connection to phrases with religious roots, and that impoverishes us in some ways. Lots of us no longer know what a "Holy Grail" is or what ..read more

: You can get an email with a link to my blog every time it publishes by registering Religion scholar and analyst Mark Silk, in , I have a particular concern about the  , describes the two approaches to politics that are rooted in the religious views that guide Donald Trump and Kamala Harris -- one that looks back to an imagined American past and one that looks forward to an imagined American future. He notes that Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan was borrowed from the 1980 slogan of the Ronald Reagan-George Bush ticket and is "simply a continuation of this restorationist ideology ..read more

: Death row exonerees led by As the 2024 Summer Olympics roll on in Paris, a large group of clergy to provide spiritual support and counseling for athletes. Good for them. And good for what so far looks like amiable relations between representatives of different faith traditions. How about we use that as a model for when there are no Olympic games to watch? will gather at 11 a.m. Thursday in Jefferson City, Mo., to call out Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey and his office for what the exonerees call Bailey's indifference toward the possibility of executing an innocent person. The protest ..read more

: To receive an email notification any time there's a new post on my blog, just sign up for that and others. There's relief but also renewed pain at the loss of such people as that will spare them the death penalty. , plus Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ‘Attash and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al-Hawsawi. ( , by the way, is a more complete story about the agreement from Lawdragon.com.) Until we've had a chance to ask such questions, however, we'll have to continue waiting -- but today I wait with a little more hope than what I had when yesterday began ..read more