SEPTEMBER 10, 2020 BY GENE VEITH Historically, religions have sometimes used force to compel people to accept their teachings and to punish those who did not. This has been an issue with Catholicism, with its heretic-burnings and inquisitions, and has sometimes happened in Protestant communities. Luther, though, opposed coercion and punishment in matters of faith. Today, […]
SEPTEMBER 11, 2020 BY GENE VEITH As election day nears, a torrent of books, articles, and whistleblower accounts is telling us what a bad person President Donald Trump is. One of the most disturbing charges is that the president considers members of the military–particularly those who have been defeated, captured, wounded, killed, or otherwise sacrificed for […]
JULY 11, 2020 BY RICK SNEDEKER Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia, one of the ancient world’s most beautiful surviving examples of Eastern Orthodox Christian architecture, was on July 10 declared a Muslim mosque by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, secular Turkey’s populist, Islamist president. Erdogan’s bald political move pandering to his conservative, Islamist base in Turkey, after the Turkish Supreme Court […]