HAPPY (BELATED) BIRTHDAY, BILLY! “Graham, America’s Most Famous Preacher, Turns 93.”

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RELIGION & POLITICS: “Election 2012’s great religion divide.”

Religious people cannot have it both ways: to assert that their faith really matters to their public engagement, and then to insist, when it’s convenient, that religion is a matter about which no one has a right to ask questions. Voters especially have a right to know how a candidate’s philosophical leanings shape his or her attitudes toward the religious freedom of unbelievers as well as believers.

And here’s the hardest part: We all have to ask ourselves whether what we claim to be hearing as the voice of faith (or of God) may in fact be nothing more than the voice of our ideology or political party. We should also ask whether candidates are merely exploiting religion to rally some part of the electorate to their side. The difficulty of answering both questions — given the human genius for rationalization — might encourage a certain humility that comes hard to most of us, and perhaps, above all, to people who write opinion columns.

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SHHH! DON’T TELL GLENN BECK! “Conservatives and Social Justice.”

When the godfather of neoconservatism, Irving Kristol, wrote Two Cheers for Capitalism, he intentionally held back from giving it a resounding three cheers. He knew there were downsides, and that conservatives had to be honest about these in order to address them adequately. But the conservative message about capitalism today glosses over these facts, proposes no principles of justice, and fails to engage—let alone persuade—our fellow citizens who worry about our economic order. Conservatives writing in defense of democratic capitalism need to spend less energy fighting off communism, and more energy developing a conservative vision of social justice, painting a picture of what a better capitalism could look like. If conservatives don’t, the only alternatives will be coming from the Left. And that would be an injustice.

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ARAB SPRING, COPTIC WINTER? “Citizens or Martyrs? The Uncertain Fate of Christians in the Arab Spring.”

As for Christians in the Middle East, it is understandable that they have allied with secular dictators: a pragmatism of survival. But the strategy is no longer reliable. While the present period’s flux creates danger, its complex and shifting factions also beget opportunity. “Christians could be among the most important architects of a new order in the Arab world,” the National Catholic Reporter’s John Allen wrote this past August in a powerful column on Christians in the Arab Spring. As vocal defenders of religious freedom, the region’s Christians could become a powerful and credible force not only for human dignity but also for the kind of regime in which they – and all minorities – are most likely to find protection in the new Arab order. But they need help. To be the architects that Allen envisions, Christians require solidarity from sympathetic governments, Christians outside the region, and like-minded Muslims.

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LONGING FOR MAGISTERIUM: “The Rise of WebMD Catholicism.”

But the notion of WebMD Catholicism helps frame a second concern: Faced with this multiplying number of sources, one might ask: Does the availability of information seduce us too quickly to believe that we can accurately understand and diagnose the theological and liturgical questions we face? Put another way, what has become of, or how do we make sense of, the notion of expertise among those who profess an interest in what the Church teaches? Do too many of us rush to encyclicals and other papal statements, or the writings of a famous saint or Catholic intellectual, with the same confidence with which we rush to WebMD to understand and diagnose sickness in our physical health—and with the same erring result?

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 [NOT] KNOWING GOD ARMINIANISM:“J.I. Packer and Arminianism.”

Packer is the kind of Calvinist I am against–the kind who misrepresent Arminianism when they should know better (because they are scholars) and who vilify Arminians as subchristian or sinners just for being Arminian!

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TRY MATCH.COM: “Whatever Happened to ‘Unequally Yoked’?”

Why? Well, there’s long been a man shortage in American congregations. (Indeed, not just in America, and not just within Christianity.) But there’s an even more profound “devout” man shortage in American congregations. At least one out of three evangelical women cannot—meaning it’s empirically impossible to—marry a man who’s their spiritual equal. (That figure came from my own data analysis of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which revealed only two serious, churchgoing evangelical men for every three comparable women.) They can pray till their blue in the face, and it won’t happen apart from some “man revival,” one which grows the faithful XYs but not the XXs.

So basically the advice to women now translates to: “Find that rare man who is your spiritual equal or leader—not to mention kind, virtuous, employed, and, if possible, handsome—and then figure out how to make him want to marry you.” It can be a tall order.

In fact, it’s impossible for a significant minority, at least by the numbers. So evangelicals feel sorry for the one-third of devout women, and try to say nice things about the benefits of singleness (which do exist), but nothing can force them to move their boundary stones for marriage. Except that they have moved. Marriage is slowly becoming something that only an elite will attain on the timetable they prefer.

So, readers, help me understand how and why the bar for a prospective spouse got raised into the spiritual stratosphere. Isn’t the old, simple “unequally yoked” standard good enough?

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TEACH YOUR CHILDREN WELL: “Children: Athiest or Religulous?”

Above all — and this cannot be overemphasized — make sure they believe that to possess technical mastery of language, mathematics, and other symbolic systems is the same thing as possessing wisdom.

That should do the trick.

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EVANGELICAL LEFT WATCH: “Democrats Receive Blowback over Outreach to Religious Voters.”

President Obama and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) are receiving some criticism over the new head of their religious outreach. In October, the DNC announced Derrick Harkins, senior pastor of Nineteenth Street Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., would lead the 2012 effort. Harkins actively promotes progressive policies, and he also serves on the boards of the National Association of Evangelicals, World Relief, and Faith in Public Life.

His link to evangelicals may be a strength, but it is also causing controversy among some in the Democratic Party’s liberal base because of his views on marriage and abortion.

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SERMON WATCH: “Literalism: Isn’t the Bible Historically Unreliable and Repressive.”

One of the things that most troubles people about Christianity is the Bible. They say something like this: “There are many good things in the Bible, but you shouldn’t take every word of it literally.” Though I heard this for many years, I was never quite sure what they meant. But I have now come to realize they are saying this: “There are many good things in the Bible, but you shouldn’t insist that everyone believe and follow everything in it, because there are some things in the Bible that are just wrong—things that are historically unreliable. The Bible holds within it legends, and we don’t know what really happened or what was actually said. Much of the Bible is culturally regressive and promotes certain views that are best left behind. So, for these reasons, there are good things in the Bible, but don’t insist on it being entirely trustworthy and completely authoritative in everything it says.”

What do we say to that? I like to argue to the contrary, of course. I like to argue that you can and should trust the Bible historically, culturally, and most of all, personally.

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WHAT IS A PASTOR? “Nine Stereotypes for Pastors.”

What roles and positions in our cultural setting might be projected onto pastors? If people learn that you’re a clergyperson, what assumptions might they have about you and your ministry? What might folks in your church and community expect of you as a pastor because they associate you with people who serve in roles like yours?

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GEEK WATCH: “Best Selling Books in Sociology of Religion, SSSR 2011.”

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NOT MAINLINE ANYMORE: “The long, steady decline of Mainline Protestantism.”