Today’s holiday culture wars continue an ancient struggle, as Nat Parry explores in this adaptation from his new book, How Christmas Became Christmas: The Pagan and Christian Origins of the Beloved Holiday.
This excerpt is from the author’s newest book, Our Class: Trauma and Transformation in an American Prison.
The time for the followers of Jesus to publicly protest injustices such as wealth inequality is at hand, argues retired Baptist minister Rev. Howard Bess.
The U.S. mainstream media bends over backward not to call the President a liar even when it’s deserved, but Donald Trump’s falsehoods are so glaring that the L word should apply, says ethicist Daniel C. Maguire.
There is a profound contradiction for Christians who celebrate the “prince of peace” at Christmas and then return to the business of endless — and expanding — war the rest of the year, as the Rev. Howard Bess observes.
The Catholic Church, which over the centuries has blessed many dreadful wars, is shifting to an anti-war position favored by Pope Francis and more in line with Jesus’s teachings, writes ex-CIA official Graham E. Fuller.
Many Christian churches opt for comforting their parishioners with reassuring ceremonies, banal sermons and even appeals to popular nationalistic sentiments rather than challenging them with the tough calls from Jesus for social justice, a grave failure, says Rev. Howard Bess.
From the Archive: In Holy Week, many Christians celebrate what they regard as God’s sacrifice of his Son and the Resurrection. But some scholars see another narrative in which Jesus, a rural rebel, brings his critique of the Jewish-Roman power structure to Jerusalem and…
Christian churches typically present the religious mythology about Jesus, as the supernatural Son of God who was sacrificed on the cross as atonement for man’s sins. But there is a more historical Jesus who instructed the poor about the injustices they…
America’s widening gap between rich and poor is especially noticeable at Christmastime when the rich shower themselves with extravagant gifts and assuage their self-images by donating a few turkeys and a toy or two to the poor, a tradition that…
