GeorgePWood.com

PERSECUTED IRANIAN CHRISTIANS: Wood personally requests release of Iranian pastors, church members.

After paying respect to the country of Iran through recognizing its prominent reference in the Bible, Wood states his letter is born out of concern for followers of Jesus who are being detained for reasons that violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that Iran has signed. He then requests the release of Rev. Farhad Sabok Rouh; his wife, Shahnaz Jizani; and two other members of the Assembly of God in Ahvaz, Iran, who were arrested on December 23, 2011. Wood follows this request by asking for the release of Rev. Youcef Nardarkhani, who has been held since October 2009 and faces execution.

RELATED: With the Help of God They Dare… by yours truly.

HAITI, TWO YEARS LATER: God and Suffering: Remembering the Haitian Earthquake of January 2010. And you can do something to feed Haitian children by donating to Convoy of Hope.

UNANIMOUS DECISION: Church Wins Firing Case at Supreme Court.

“This is a huge win for religious liberty,” said Douglas Laycock, a University of Virginia Law School professor who represented the church at the Supreme Court’s oral arguments in October. “The Court has unanimously confirmed the right of churches to select their own ministers and religious leaders. It has unanimously held that the courts cannot inquire into whether the church had religious reasons for its decisions concerning a minister. The longstanding unanimity in the lower courts has now been confirmed by unanimity in the Supreme Court.”

See also What Comes After Hosanna-Tabor, The Administration’s Embarrassment.

IN OTHER RELIGIOUS FREEDOM NEWS: Court Deems Sharia Law Ban “Unconstitutional.”

This fight over the Oklahoma Sharia law ban isn’t over by a long shot, but this decision definitely highlights its futility. If Sharia opponents can’t name a single instance of Islamic law being used in the state courts, what exactly is the point of banning it — beyond vague and unsubstantiated fears?

THE SCANDAL OF THE EVANGELICAL MIND? Service Is Not Scandal: Responding to Mark Noll.

Instead of taking a tradition-building approach to intellectual life, I hope we evangelical scholars celebrate and deepen our current practices: teaching undergraduates, popularizing academic insights, working directly to change the world through service and applied research, and offering institutional and personal support to the small number of evangelical scholars who excel at theoretical and basic research. And along with all this, we should continue to worship and serve through our churches, provide hands-on care to our loved ones, and do good works in the world. From the vantage point of the modern academic prestige structure, this may not look like an exemplary life of the mind, but it may be one way to enjoy “the life that truly is life” (1 Tim. 6:19). In a time in which work tends to overtake life, an approach that both relishes the intellect and keeps it in its place is a pearl of great price, and we should display it readily even in settings where it is not recognized as such.

PENTECOSTALS & THE NATURALISM BIAS: Counting Christian Noses. (By the way, what’s up with the photo of snake handlers? These people aren’t representative of Pentecostals.)

Behind all the numbers collected so assiduously by Lugo, Johnson et al. looms a vast challenge to the taken-for-granted naturalism in Europe and North America: The majority of global Christians (and, needless to say, the majority of all religious people in the world) question this naturalism, and behave accordingly. Will this challenge diminish with greater affluence and higher education?  Possibly.  Thus far it doesn’t look like it. Thus it would seem that an important dialogue is still outstanding.

PROBABLY NOT, BUT IT’S STILL BAD: Presidential Politics at Its Worst?

Just because American politics has always been uncivil and negative does not mean that we have to like it. Toxic political discourse and personal attacks might help candidates win elections, but it will not solve the multitude of problems that we face as a nation.

I am growing increasingly skeptical about whether a Christian can win a national election without compromising his or her faith. Humility, charity, and a commitment to the common good will not get anyone elected in our present political culture. Yet this is precisely what our culture needs. Unfortunately, such an approach to politics would probably come across as quite foolish to most Americans, including many Christians.

YEP: Be Missional, Not Superficially Contextual.

TEBOWMANIA MEETS PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION: The Tebowological Argument.

RELIGIOUS AFFECTIONS MEETS SURPRISED BY JOY: The Case for “Sense of the Heart” Apologetics.

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY 10 YEARS MAKES: Ten Years of Changing Attitudes on Gay Marriage.

DON’T TELL MY MOM: Clothing Matters: What We Wear to Church.

BUMMED I DIDN’T MAKE THE LIST: Top Ten Sermons of 2011.

MEDIUM AND MESSAGE: Christianity and the Future of the Book.

But however important defense of the paper codex may be, the obligation to defend the book remains far greater. It is the book, largely as it emerged from the early Christian Church’s understanding of its own Scriptures, that has enabled much of the best that has been thought and said in the past fifteen hundred years. And its key virtues can be preserved, and perhaps even extended, in forms other than the paper codex. By contrast, screens that allow only minuscule chunks of text to be displayed at any one time — and that effectively remove from perceptual awareness context, sequence, and narrative — do violence to the book qua book. If Christians forget, or forget more completely than they already have, the integrity and necessary sequentiality of their holy Book, and of the story it tells, that would be a catastrophe for Christianity. But even those who do not care for Christianity should remember that Christians tend to be a proselytizing people, and the message that they bring will always be entangled with technologies of reading. Over the long haul, as fields of cultural force shift their patterns, that may come to matter to people who now look on Christianity with indifference or hostility. When the evangelists come to our doors, may they come bearing iPads and Kindles.

CIVILITY: The Cure for Election Madness.

In the midst of a raging political debate, it is difficult to step back from the battle lines and carefully assess a proposed policy’s likely success. But if we want our faith to inform our political actions and offer a positive Christian witness, such a measured approach is not only wise—it is essential.

1. 1.       Admit the Complexity of Political Issues…
2. 2.       Play Fair in the War of Words…
3. 3.       Engage Hard Issues…

IT’S NOT CALLED ‘THE FIRST FREEDOM’ FOR NOTHING: Religion and Freedom.

So threats to religious liberty do not just harm individual believers. In seeking to corral, marginalize, and privatize religion, they endanger the health of religious institutions more generally, threatening to cut off a critically important source of moral reflection and orientation. This enfeebles rather than enlivens the moral content of our culture, a content that we all, believers and non-believers alike, rely upon to exercise our freedom.

HENCE, THE NEED FOR GRACE AND HUMILITY: The Moral Complexity of Social Issues.

THE LATTER: God: Psychological Projection or Real, External Being?

The Catholic philosopher and apologist Maurice Blondel, a contemporary of Freud, seizes on the atheists’ reductive conclusion to argue that God is not a projection of what is within, but the external reality toward which human action is directed. For Blondel, in the summary of Father John Cihak, human beings discover an external transcendent reality when reflecting on freedom and the insatiability of the will. Unable to find fulfillment in the finite –which is all that exists in the worldview of Feuerbach and Freud – human beings must open themselves to something beyond themselves

ARAB SPRING, COPTIC WINTER: Is the Arab Spring Good News for Christians?

Middle Eastern Christianity is, like the Middle East itself, bewilderingly diverse. Until today, it is a much larger community than most Western evangelicals realize. It is also deeply ingrained in the various social contexts of the region. In other words, Christianity has always been part of the Arab world, and its diminishing status will threaten not just the presence of Christianity in the land of its birth, but the very fabric of the region as a whole.

ABOUT THAT DIVERSITY… Identity among Middle East Christians.

The Maronites and Copts used to maintain Syriac and Coptic respectively as their sole liturgical languages even after the Muslim conquests, but have gradually come to incorporate Arabic to a limited degree as their adherents have adopted Arabic as their language of everyday communication. However, the Assyrian churches, whose adherents primarily speak various Eastern Neo-Aramaic dialects as their mother tongue, still maintain Syriac as their sole liturgical language.

STRAW MAN: Biblical Economic Justice: Supply and Demand Isn’t Enough.

But an extremism that elevates supply and demand to its solitary and highest priority rejects a more encompassing Biblical commitment to care for the widow and the orphan, to provide food and clothing for the poor, to educate and nurture all its children, to live harmoniously with creation. Such a idolatrous dogmatism must be rejected, both in the name of our Founding Fathers and in the name of the world’s wisdom traditions.

The issue is not economics versus ethics. The issue is what sphere (individual, family, society, state) is supposed to provide the relevant goods.

KINDNESS TOWARD STRANGERS: Evangelicalism’s Changing Heart on Immigration.

Younger evangelicals see immigration less as a law-and-order issue and more as a justice issue. It’s part of the expanding pro-life base, where Christians champion the cause of the unborn, fight human trafficking, and see the undocumented immigrant as a life worth saving. It is a nuance informed not by political sensitivities, but by Scriptural convictions.

ANTI-SAME SEX MARRIAGE = ANTI-GAY? Public Opinion on Same-Sex Marriage.

It is unwarranted and irresponsible to interpret opposition to same-sex marriage as a proxy for being anti-gay. There is no empirical evidence to suggest that senior citizens are anti-gay.

ANTI-CIVILITY: The deceit of Dan Savage.

BIG GOVERNMENT IS ALWAYS THE PROBLEM: The Problem with Compassionate Conservatism.

At the same time, it seems to me that many compassionate conservatives don’t fully appreciate the moral, social, and legal urgency of reducing the state’s size and reach, instead of primarily focusing upon streamlining government’s role. The capacity, for example, of even well-intentioned government interventions and apparently benign public-private partnerships to help facilitate dysfunctional families as well as suck the life out of the rich mosaic of free associations and autonomous institutions often conceptually cobbled together under the rubric of civil society has been exhaustively documented. Moreover, as I’ve argued elsewhere, the sheer number of laws and regulations that now govern our lives represents a genuine threat to rule of law, inasmuch as the sheer profusion of laws increases the potential for arbitrary decisions by courts and governments, including by those who don’t want to act arbitrarily.

MEGA-CHURCHES LOCATED AMONG MEGA-POPULATIONS: The distribution of mega-churches in the US (map).

MEGA-EGO? Ed Young, Christian Pastor, to Stream 24-Hour Bed-In from Church Roof.

FEELING GROOVY: Paul Simon: “God comes up a lot in my songs.”

HAPPY EPIPHANY! If you have no idea what I’m talking about, start with this Wikipedia article.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM WATCH: Iranian Intelligence Agency raids Assembly of God church.

During the Christmas service on the morning of Friday, December 23, at the Assembly of God church in Ahvaz (also known as Ahwaz), Iran, multiple news agencies have reported that the Iranian Intelligence Agency raided the church. Pastor Farhad Sabokrouh, his wife, Shahnaz Jizani, and the entire congregation – children included – were arrested, loaded on buses and taken to an undisclosed location for interrogation.

Mohabat News says that after several hours of interrogation, the detainees were released, with the exception of Pastor Farhad Sabokrouh, his wife and two other members – Naser Zamen-Dezfuli and Davoud Alijani. Currently, the location, treatment and condition of the four remain unknown.

“We have spoken to our area directors and leaders in the region and have confirmed that this action did indeed take place,” states AG General Superintendent George O. Wood. “Although direct communication into Iran is very difficult and some of the details of the arrest remain unclear, what is clear is that our brothers and sisters in Iran need our prayers for supernatural endurance, wisdom and protection.”

According to the Christian Today Australia, this is not the first time that Christmas celebrations in Iranian churches have been raided in this way. Similar raids and detentions during the Christmas season have occurred in Iran for the last three years.

EVANGELICAL POLITICS: The Religious Vote in Iowa and Beyond. “The question, which I can’t answer with any confidence, is whether the ‘political maturity’ that evangelicals evinced in Iowa works in Romney’s favor down the road. Another way of cutting the evangelical electorate is to say that 86% supported someone other than Romney and 85% didn’t choose a Mormon. When the field is less fractured, what happens? Do identity and/or social conservatism matter more, or do people start thinking seriously about who has the best shot of winning in November? In Iowa, Romney did slightly better among the 47% of the voters who stressed the ability to beat Obama (31%) or having the right experience (16%) than did Santorum among the 49% of the voters who emphasized ‘true conservatism’ (25%) or ‘strong moral character’ (24%). I should add that Romney’s advantage over Santorum in his two criteria is almost as pronounced as Santorum’s in his.”

HEH: Is NH too white, too old, too godless? “After a season in which political observers asked whether Iowa was too white, too old, and too evangelical to wield such political clout, will anyone ask such fundamental questions about the Granite State?” On the other hand, see God and Man in New Hampshire.

THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL: Partisan Politics and Vicious Assaults. “[I]t tells you something about the culture in which we live that in some quarters those who routinely champion abortion, even partial-birth abortion, are viewed as enlightened and morally sophisticated while those grieving the loss of their son, whom they took home for a night before burying, are mercilessly mocked.”

NO. HE. DIDN’T. Rick Santorum Wins Over Evangelicals By Breaking With His Own Catholic Creed. The Creed doesn’t mention Intelligent Design or climate change, and the Pope’s writings on these topics do not necessarily set Catholic doctrine.

THE FAITH OF A PRESIDENT: Jimmy Carter Interview: Real Story Behind Egypt Israeli Peace Deal. The headline oversells the interview, but the interview has its interesting moments. Question: “What would you say to those people who say that religion divides?” Answer: “I don’t think there is any doubt about that. If you go back to the Crusades, and even before, there was division between Muslims and Christians struggling over the Holy Land — and of course that is still a divisive element. But the potential for the great religions is to bring us together. All three religions have the same basic tenets of peace, caring for those in need or afflicted and caring for one another’s visitors. But it is the radical approach to Christianity, Islam and now even Judaism, which causes the conflict. The basic premise of all three religions is the same.” Somebody needs to read God Is Not One.

THE “SO WHAT” GENERATION: For many, “Losing My Religion” isn’t a song: It’s a way of life.

Only now, however, are they turning up in the statistical stream. Researchers have begun asking the kind of nuanced questions that reveal just how big the “So What” set might be:

—44 percent told the 2011 Baylor University Religion Survey they spend no time seeking “eternal wisdom,” and 19 percent said “it’s useless to search for meaning.”

—46 percent told a 2011 survey by Nashville, Tenn.-based LifeWay Research that they never wonder whether they will go to heaven.

—28 percent told LifeWay “it’s not a major priority in my life to find my deeper purpose.” And 18 percent scoffed at the idea that God has a purpose or plan for everyone.

—6.3 percent of Americans turned up on Pew Forum’s 2007 Religious Landscape Survey as totally secular—unconnected to God or a higher power or any religious identity and willing to say religion is not important in their lives.

EVANGELICAL MARRIAGE WARS: Q&A: Mark and Grace Driscoll on Sex for the 21st-Century Christian. For a trenchant critique the Driscolls, see Driscoll, “Real Marriage,” and Why Being a Pastor Doesn’t Automatically Make You a Sex Therapist.

THE WILL OF GOD FOR YOUR LIFE: Love God and Do What You Will: Avoiding Over-Devotion to Our Lady of Perpetual Discernment. “The Christian ought to make major life decisions as he ought to make all decisions: by evaluating how he can serve God, by choosing a course of action accordingly, and by having the courage to follow through and do it. As Pope Benedict XVI writes, ‘If I listen to [God] and walk with Him, I become truly myself. What counts is not the fulfillment of my desires, but of his will. In this way life becomes authentic.’ May we each have the courage to live such an authentic life, free from the unnecessary burdens we impose on ourselves by becoming too preoccupied with what one of my friends refers to as ‘an over-devotion to Our Lady of Perpetual Discernment.’”

SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION: Top 11 from ’11: Religion Research Studies in Sociology. The picks are at the bottom of the post. The studies on lynching (#2), corporal punishment (#5), infant care (#6), and hate crimes against Arabs and Muslims (#9) piqued my interest. The study on pastoral power (#8) lost me at Foucault.

GOOD FOR TARGET AND NORDSTROM! America’s next top model: a little boy with Down syndrome.

EVANGELICALS, MORMONS, & POLITICS: Why Obama Wins. “So many evangelicals grew up being told that the pope is the anti-Christ and that the LDS Church is satanic, that it is deeply ingrained in them.  I’m not saying that they’ll campaign against Romney or Santorum, just that their antipathy to their religions will leave evangelical voters totally unmotivated.” See also Romney’s Evangelical Problem Starts with Theology. “The good news for Mitt Romney: he won the Iowa caucuses. The bad news for Romney: evangelicals remain reluctant to support him.” And finally, Romney’s religion still a sticking point. But if you read all the way to the end of the article, you read that Phil and Karen Poe (who attend an Assemblies of God church in Des Moines) got over their suspicions of Romney pretty quickly. “Beating Obama is my bottom line,” Karen said. My guess is that that’s the bottom line for many evangelical voters, not the candidate’s theology. See also Evangelicals and Santorum, where R. R. Reno shares the same intuition as I do.

MICHELLE BACHMANN: A Divine Call Won’t Get You Votes.

RON PAUL: Theonomists, Reconstructionists, and Dominionists. Oh My! “So I think we should applaud Goldberg for taking into consideration the religious viewpoints and influences of candidates like Ron Paul, Rick Perry, and Michelle Bachmann, but we should also take her to task for not being a bit more sensitive to the complicated theological landscape. Christian Reconstructionists are a vocal minority, a “fringe” as Goldberg calls them, among politically conservative Christians, but their specific views about biblical laws and punishments are simply not attributable to every evangelical candidate.”

THE HIGH PRIEST OF OUR CIVIL RELIGION: Commander and Chaplain: The Faith of Presidents. “In the absence of a national chaplain, the President sometimes has functioned in that role, partly because of the expectations of the American people. When we have a crisis, whether it is a war or a tragedy—like the shootings in Tucson or a space disaster—we expect the President to function almost as our civic priest. We want him to give us assurance that God is still in control and that the people who have died have died for a good cause and that they’re going to be eternally blessed.”

MARRIAGE MATTERS: Why Fight Same-Sex Marriage? “There is, then, a further vital reason why same-sex marriage must be vigorously contested, namely, that no peace is to be had by capitulation. Like it or not, the great struggle is under way. Marriage, if you please, is the Sudetenland, and its concession is the precursor to a cultural Blitzkrieg.” I largely agree with this article, but why must the author use a Nazi analogy? By doing so, doesn’t he risk violating Godwin’s law? Regardless, if you think this author is just wildly speculating, read this.

MEAN ATHEISTS: Ill will toward men. “Seen on Answerblog.com: ‘How do atheists express their love for the rest of humanity?’ Answer: ‘You don’t need religion to express love, you complete idiot. Why are all your questions so ignorant?’ Genuinely warmhearted atheists exist, but warmheartedness is not the first descriptive quality that comes to mind. The more vocal ones betray themselves sooner or later: To reject God is almost always to despise people.” This makes logical sense. After all, atheists teach that God is a mere projection of humanity. If God is a delusion (Dawkins), then his human creators are ignorant and deluded. If religion poisons everything (Hitchens), then humans are the poisoners. Calling the vast swath of humanity stupid and wicked is the essence of misanthropy.

LEGO ATHEIST: The Brick Bible’s Case against Faith. “In all, the book—with its skewed perspective on matters of faith and its wry commentary on Old Testament stories—makes a pretty good case against faith. Since that’s not the objective of most parents, I’d suggest looking elsewhere for a good Bible storybook for your children.”

AGES OF ROCKS & THE ROCK OF AGES: Why Geology Matters. “But more specifically, it is clear that all Christian high school and Christian college students ought to gain substantial knowledge about the structure, composition, behavior, and history of their God-given home, planet Earth. The current situation, in which the geosciences are ignored totally, woefully underemphasized, or grossly distorted in Christian high schools and Christian liberal arts colleges, is inexcusable and must be radically changed. MacDougall’s book amounts to a wake-up call for a much larger place for geoscience education. Why Geology Matters should be mandatory reading for all scientists, school board members, and academic deans and presidents, but especially pastors, theologians, Christian school board members, and Christian college leaders.”

TOO MUCH POLITICAL SPEECH? Iowa: The Gray Lady Freaks Out. “So let’s sum up: The Times is concerned that 1) there is more political speech than there would be if not for the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United and the appeals-court decision in SpeechNow.org v. FEC; 2) groups of citizens are running their own ads, rather than relying solely on the candidates to run ads; 3) the ads are saying awful things, accusing candidates of “being too liberal on immigration,” or having “ethics baggage,” something the Times would never discuss, except in its news stories on Newt Gingrich’s “ethics” “baggage” on November 28, December 8, December 9, December 14, and December 31; 4) stories about a candidate’s ethics or positions on immigration should be off limits in an “accountable” campaign; and 5) all this citizen speech informing voters about various candidates’ positions, ethics, and endorsements, coming not only from the candidates but from other sources, can be blamed on Citizens United and SpeechNow.org.”

NO: Does Islam Forbid Even Studying Evolution? “Muslims everywhere must open their minds to all new ideas. They must be confident that their faith and worldview are robust enough to deal with modernity in its various facets; indeed, new viewpoints can help fine-tune beliefs and worldviews. Islam not only does not forbid studying evolution or any other theory; it welcomes new knowledge and deals with it objectively. Muslims are called upon to engage with science, philosophy, and art with confidence and open minds.”

CHURCH LAW & TAX: The Top 10 Church Law Articles from 2011.

BUILDING CHURCH LEADERS: Our Top 10 Resources in 2011.

REVIVAL WATCH: “Pentecostal Renewal Transforms Rwanda after Genocide.”

A MORMON TAKE ON BAPTISM IN THE SPIRIT: “Choose a life of constant refinement.”

LET’S HOPE NOT! OR HOPE SO? “The Next Billy Graham Might Be Drunk Right Now.”

CAN A FALSE TEACHING BE FALSIFIED? “Scientologists in feud over leader.” Because he has strayed from the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard…

ATHEIST REDUCTIONISTS, THAT IS: “Reductionists on Parade.” See also “Against Atheist Cant.”

WOULD YOU RATHER CLIMB A HILL OR TAKE A N.A.P.? “Atheists Face Uphill Climb With New Political Party.”

BECAUSE NOTHING RUINS SOMETHING LIKE POLITICS DOES: “Saving Happiness from Politics.” “Beyond a level of basic material needs, personal happiness is and will always be significantly personal and subjective. Attempting to provide it collectively through an assortment of entitlements is bound to fail. There is a thin line between facilitating the individual pursuit of happiness and prescribing it for all of us. That line marks the difference between a free society that maximizes the opportunity for prosperity and the chance of happiness and a compulsive system that reduces the possibility of both. We should therefore treat the happiness revival — in the academy, in politics, and elsewhere — with appropriate skepticism and concern.”

HOW WE COMMUNICATE AND FORM RELATIONSHIPS: “Two Trends Worth Watching in 2012.”

A FOUR-DAY-OLD YEAR ALREADY HAS MYTHS ABOUT IT? “Top 10 Myths About 2012.”

RATIONALIZE = RATIONAL LIES? “The Problem With Rationalizing the Bible.” “Miracles are articles of faith, for true believers today and for the Bible as well. Whether they actually happened or not is debatable. But to chalk them up to freak occurrences of nature is fundamentally to misunderstand the nature both of the Bible and of belief in it.”

LGBT AS A UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHT? “Hillary Clinton and the ‘Laws that Teach.’”

YEP: “How Christians Ought to ‘Occupy’ Wall Street (and All Streets): “Christians therefore must occupy the world in their occupations, doing all their work as Christians, whatever it is, ‘whether in word or deed,’ as the Apostle Paul instructs, ‘in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him’ (Col. 3:17 NIV). In this way the church finds its most significant and transformative cultural engagement through its affirmation of the daily work of Christians who already occupy Wall Street (and all streets).”

THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF CHARLES HODGE: “The Presbyterian Pope.”

FOR MANY REASONS: “Why Have We Seen a Drop in Crime?”

MEXICO HAS A GRAND WARLOCK? “Mexican Grand Warlock Predicts Obama Loss in 2012.”

LOVE WINS? “2011: The Year of the Hell Debate.”

I AGREE WITH THIS LETTER: “All American Muslim: An Open Letter.” “In our view, it is fundamentally unjust to tar all or most Muslims with the brush of extremism; and, as Christians and Americans, we must never countenance injustice. Moreover, effectively countering the threats posed by genuine extremists requires us to welcome as friends and allies Muslims who share our opposition to radicalism and violence, who value their American citizenship and American freedom just as we do, and who contribute constructively to their communities and the larger society. When we treat our Muslim fellow citizens justly, and when we welcome them as partners in our efforts on behalf of life, liberty, and human dignity, we are being true both to our Christian faith and to our American heritage.”

SANTA CLAUS IN TURKEY: “Is Santa the Canary in the Coal Mine?” I’m not sure what to make of this post, but there’s something funny in a Jew writing about a Muslim’s view of a Christian saint.

EVANGELICALS FOR MITT? “An Open Letter to the Romney Skeptics.”

COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATISM? “Santorum’s evangelical surge is about more than Christian Right.”

NUTTY POLITICS, BUT NICE GUY? “The Compassion of Dr. Ron Paul.”

COLLATERAL DAMAGE: “Divorce Rate Among Afghanistan, Iraq War Vets Increases by 42 Percent.”

BUT THE INTELLIGENT DESIGNER ISN’T: “Intelligent Design Is Dead: A Christian Perspective.”

INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW: “Was Arminius an inclusivist? Continuing a conversation.”

THE CHALLENGE OF EVANGELICAL AESTHETICS: “Art, Conscience, and Theological McCarthyism.”

RELIGION & POP CULTURE: “Let Lennon be Lennon and forget Cee Lo Green.”

LET THE JOKES BEGIN: Ted Haggard to appear on “Celebrity Wife Swap.”

FIFTY PERCENT: “Why Young Adults Are Leaving the Church.”

HOMILETICS MASTER CLASS: “Preaching when parched.”

INFOGRAPHIC: “How the Bible Feels.”

OBVIOUSLY, IT’S A SLOW NEWS DAY: “Tintin’s Politics.”

INSIDE JOKE FOR PHILOSOPHERS OF RELIGION: “Transworld Irony.” “It is possible that in every possible world there exists at a college named after John Calvin a philosophy professor who offers a free will defense for the problem of evil.”

LIFE SUCKS, I’M TAKING A SABBATICAL: “A Time to Go Deeper.”A question for Jim Wallis: How many members of the 99% have sufficient wealth, or work for an organization with sufficient resources, to allow them to take a 3-month sabbatical?

WHAT’S THE UNDER/OVER ON THESE PREDICTIONS? “15 faith-based predictions for 2012.”

AND? “Libertarianism and Christianity.”

SENSIBLE? “Toward a Sensible Discussion of Empire.”

DIVIDED WE FALL: “Tea Party, Occupy movements fail to capture Americans’ hearts.”

GOOD QUESTION: “Why do Iowa’s evangelicals wield so much political clout?”

ANOTHER GOOD QUESTION: “Why are imams telling us about nail polish?”

TOP 10: “Top 10 religion and politics stories to watch.”

MORE TOP 10: “Top 10 under-covered Vatical stories (plus a bonus feature).”

STILL MORE TOP 10: “Top 10 Religion Stories That Weren’t.” From a liberal perspective.

YET STILL MORE TOP 10: “My Top 10 Theology Stories of 2011.” From a conservative perspective.

SO MANY BOOKS, SO LITTLE TIME: “Don’t Worry, Read Happy: Alan Jacobs on the Pleasures of Reading.”

SOUTHERN, EVANGELICAL WITH YOUNG FAMILIES, ETC.: “Which Churches are Growing? FACTS on Growth 2010.”

CULTIVATING INAUTHENTICITY: “Emotions in Church.”

THEOLOGY & EVERYDAY LIFE: “Resolving to Lose More than Pounds.”

INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW: “What Does The Book Of Revelation Really Mean?” Part 1 of a three-part series.

DECEMBER 22: Happy Winter Solstice Day!

POT, MEET KETTLE: “The Accidental Universe: Science’s crisis of faith.”

That same uncertainty disturbs many physicists who are adjusting to the idea of the multiverse. Not only must we accept that basic properties of our universe are accidental and uncalculable. In addition, we must believe in the existence of many other universes. But we have no conceivable way of observing these other universes and cannot prove their existence. Thus, to explain what we see in the world and in our mental deductions, we must believe in what we cannot prove.

Sound familiar? Theologians are accustomed to taking some beliefs on faith. Scientists are not. All we can do is hope that the same theories that predict the multiverse also produce many other predictions that we can test here in our own universe. But the other universes themselves will almost certainly remain a conjecture.

“We had a lot more confidence in our intuition before the discovery of dark energy and the multiverse idea,” says Guth. “There will still be a lot for us to understand, but we will miss out on the fun of figuring everything out from first principles.”

YEP: “Call It Christ’s Mass and Let Best Buy Keep the Holiday.”

AZUSA STREET, 100 YEARS LATER: “More Than 1 in 4 Christians Are Pentecostal, Charismatic.”

COME ON IN, THE WATER’S FINE! “Baptists, Pentecostals Seek Common Ground.”

OR PERHAPS EUROPE HAS MOVED AWAY FROM FOLLOWING? “Christianity is still the largest religion in the world but followers have moved away from Europe.”

BECAUSE VIRTUE ISN’T GOING AWAY: “Why We Need a ‘Stuck with Virtue’ Science.”

BECAUSE SOCIOLOGISTS HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO: “Sociological rules of Christmas gift giving.”

QUESTIONABLE RELIGIOUS STATISTIC: “Study: Atheists distrusted as much as rapists.”

GOOD FOR THEM! BUT DIDN’T SCROOGE CONVERT? “Atheists aim to change image of penny-pinching Scrooges.”

CRAP OR CONSCIENCE? “Manure Makers, Yes; Catholics, No.”

ANTISEMITES, RACISTS, CONSPIRACY NUTTERS: “The Company Ron Paul Keeps.”

IVY LEAGUE PERVS: “The Postmodern Pedophile: Meet the academics who try to redefine pedophilia as ‘intergenerational intimacy.’”

SO LITTLE TIME, SO MANY BOOKS: Random House has compiled “The Best of the Book Lists.” If you’re looking for a last-minute Christmas gift, why not check out the 2011 Pulitzer Prize Winners or Amazon’s Best Books of 2011 or Publisher’s Weekly Best Books of 2011 or Wall Street Journal’s Best History Books of 2011? Or why not check out The Claremont Review’s recommended books? Or the Huffington Post’s Best Religious Books of 2011?

WAIT, SANTA CLAUS WASN’T AT THE MANGER? “The Weird Tension of Christmas: How do you embrace holiday fun without forgetting sacred tradition?

CHRISTMAS WARS: “The Real War On Christmas…By Fox News.”

REMEMBERING JOSEPH AT CHRISTMAS: “Father to God, Model for Us.”

THE FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS: “The Meaning of Hanukkah.”

“Hanukkah” means “dedication.” Originally, the term referred to the rededication of the purified Temple after the Maccabees’ stunning military victory. But as the story of the martyrs shows, the victory was also associated with the heroic dedication of the Jewish traditionalists of the time to their God and his Torah. If Hanukkah celebrates freedom, it is a freedom to be bound to something higher than freedom itself.

JESUS APPS: “Five Social Media Trends that are Reshaping Religion.”

OBITUARY: “Christopher Hitchens Has Died.”

YOU THINK? “Unequally Yoked: The OWS movement does not align as well with the Bibleas some suppose.”

It’s not at all clear that this is what the Bible means when it condemns greed. Arguably the OWS movement seizes upon one strand of biblical guidance, the condemnation of greed, but cuts out the rest of the tapestry of biblical counsel. How, for instance, do attacks on “the 1 percent” comport with the commandment not to covet? How would increased government spending, with a staggering debt already, reflect wise stewardship? Or is it true that taking more from “the rich” and giving more to “the poor” would improve the latter’s circumstances, instead of undermining incentives to industry and entrenching the poor in dependency?

WHY ANIMAL CRUELTY IS WRONG: “Bless the Beasts.”

WEALTH & POVERTY: “Advent’s Economic Good News.”

THEOLOGICAL ETHICS: “Moral Absolutes and Divine Command.”

Some actions are incapable of being ordered to our final end, and these actions are always and everywhere wrong. God absolutely prohibits such actions, but the divine legislation functions not to ground the absolute prohibition but to enforce it.

STUPID JOURNALISM WATCH: “Is candidate Rick Santorum an ‘evangelist?’” The DC Bureau of the McClatchy Newspapers evidently doesn’t know the difference between an evangelist and an evangelical. Moreover, it doesn’t seem to understand that neither term applies to Rick Santorum, who is a Catholic layman. If journalists can’t keep these basic distinctions straight, one wonders what else they’re getting wrong when they report on stories with a religion angle.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR: “A Private Matter: Vanderbilt Vets Student Ministries.” If the law forces Vanderbilt, a private college, to admit evangelical student groups, can it also force Wheaton College, and evangelical private college, to admit, say, Muslim student groups?

IF TEBOW WINS, FASCISM WINS? “Can Judaism Survive Tim Tebow?” I tried linking to the original article, but it seems to have disappeared from The Jewish Week website. So, here are some quotes:

Into the middle of it all rides Tebow.  Absolutely confident that God is on his side, he comes across as a humbler version of the biblical Joseph, who, in this week’s Torah portion, audaciously lays claim to being the Chosen One, and then goes out and proves it.  Tebow’s sanctimonious God-talk has led even pious peers like Kurt Warner to suggest that he cool it. Joseph could have used the same coaching.

If Tebow wins the Super Bowl, against all odds, it will buoy his faithful, and emboldened faithful can do insane things, like burning mosques, bashing gays and indiscriminately banishing immigrants.  While America has become more inclusive since Jerry Falwell’s first political forays, a Tebow triumph could set those efforts back considerably.

That’s right, Christians are one Super Bowl win away from “burning mosques, bashing gays and indiscriminately banishing immigrants.” One. Win. Away. No wonder this idiot’s ravings disappeared from the website.

THE FUNDAMENTALS: “Must We Believe in the Virgin Birth?”

Must one believe in the Virgin Birth to be a Christian? This is not a hard question to answer. It is conceivable that someone might come to Christ and trust Christ as Savior without yet learning that the Bible teaches that Jesus was born of a virgin. A new believer is not yet aware of the full structure of Christian truth. The real question is this: Can a Christian, once aware of the Bible’s teaching, reject the Virgin Birth? The answer must be no.

SCISSORS-AND-PASTE BIBLICAL CRITICISM: “‘The Jefferson Bible,’ Jefferson’s Personal Bible On Display At A Smithsonian Exhibit.” By the way, you can buy a high-quality facsimile edition here.

ATHEIST GRINCHES STEAL CHRISTMAS: “Atheist displays displace Nativity scenes in Calif. park.”

JESUS TOASTERS? “Jesus toasters selling briskly.”

I BLAME DICK DURBIN: “Religious liberty held hostage in the Senate.” More precisely, funding for the U.Ss Commission on International Religious Freedom is being held hostage. Why?

So why is it losing its funding, by Washington’s standards, a paltry $4 million? Politics as usual is the answer. According to an article in Congressional Quarterly, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin is holding the commission hostage to his demand that the federal government purchase and open a prison in his home state of Illinois. Claiming it would create a thousand new jobs and add a billion dollars to the state’s economy, Durbin has decided that if he doesn’t get his way, persecuted religious believers, well, will just have to put up with discrimination, imprisonment, terrorism and death. Apart from being cynical, Durbin’s actions are downright cruel.

TRADITION? NO! UNLESS IT’S USEFUL. “Advocating Same-Sex Marriage: Consistency Is Another Victim.”

She had begun, in her prepared remarks, by calling on a standard of “rights” that cannot be defeated by appeals to “tradition.” And she had mocked judges who, in the early decisions on the case for same-sex marriage, had simply turned to a dictionary definition of marriage.

Yet, in her response to my point about plural marriages, Gorenberg herself turned immediately to tradition and to received definitions. Marriage just is a “binary institution,” she asserted, and changing that fact would entail all sorts of inconveniences. (The historic existence of polygamy in many places is proof that these inconveniences are not insurmountable, but this did not slow her down.)

Why mere tradition was now owed such automatic allegiance, she did not pause to explain. Now the prospect of altering a “whole raft of laws” associated with marriage filled her with horror and incredulity. She seemed quite oblivious of the fact that she was making my argument for me. Where was her concern about changing all the details and complexities of a forest of family law planted thick with assumptions about husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, always of opposite sexes?

GIVE ME LIBERTY, OR GIVE ME…EXTRAVAGANT GOVERNMENT: “Patrick Henry Warned Us about Extravagant Government.” Also, check out the author’s new biography, Patrick Henry: First Among Patriots.

AMERICAN MUSLIMS: “Those Protestant Muslims Next Door.”

What concerns me is not that this group aims to take down this TV show; it’s that they received support in the mainstream. This group’s website says they have “not experienced this strong of a response on any other issue during the past 23 years.” Their tactic conveys a symbolic message of religiously-influenced intolerance. Stated sociologically, the dominant religious group in America asserts its dominance by alienating minority non-Christian Americans by pressuring neutral businesses to cease support of this programming which in turn motivates the media producer to cancel the show – this effectively silences this affirming portrayal of a maligned minority religious group. For all of the concerns by Christians over mass media’s corrosive effects, it seems like positive portrayals of diverse Muslim Americans are the least of these problems.

MAINSTREAM ANTI-SEMITISM? “Thomas Friedman and the New Anti-Semitism.” Part 1 and Part 2.

STILL, IT SHOULD BE EASY TO SIGN, RIGHT? “A Misguided Fidelity Pledge.”

Why one would believe a pledge made to a 501(c)3 nonprofit group would carry more weight than one made to the most important people in your life, as well as to the Lord God himself, strikes me as odd.

LIES, D***ED LIES & STATISTICS? “Premarital Sex and Our Love Affair with Bad Stats.” Yes, evangelicals love to read bad stats about themselves. (About which, read Bradley Wright’s Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites…And Other Lies You’ve Been Told.)Make sure to read the comments on Kevin DeYoung’s post. And then read Premarital Sex in America by Mark Regnerus and Jeremy Uecker.