The answer to fearing the loss of teenage participation in church is NOT to make church more like the world. Logic can’t get more broken than this:

The world is evil. The teens from our church are turning to the world. We need to take steps to get them back. I know, let’s pump up the volume, color our hair and pierce our skin.

You’ll keep a few of them around a bit longer, but at what cost? You are doing the work of your enemy for them. As young people rush toward maturity, they become free agents. You do what you can to establish a foundation for them, and you stick to it.

“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”

Now on to Andrew Sullivan. It disturbs me how right he is about so many things Christian, and yet misses the little tiny thing that homosexuality is opposed by God. I have to agree with him that those who would wish to make this country become a “christian” one aren’t doing it right. I’m not comfortable with his labelling of such folks as Christianists. Far from the first time I’ve heard the term, but I can’t be sure who came first, Sullivan or Sobran, they both use it.

Finally, the core topic. I find myself extremely sceptical about Harvard’s proposal. At first blush you want to cheer and say finally, someone woke up and realized that the universities are not teaching reality, and that their students will have to face religion in their lives. However, knowing that the actual belief system of the vast majority of professors is strongly “godless” to borrow Ann’s term, I can’t bring myself to expect much of such a decision, even if it does come to pass.

As much as discussions of far less divisive topics gets colored to the bent of the professor’s own ideology, how badly would “historical” discussions of religion in America get skewed?

Still, it was a nice thought to read about, and one can hope.

The webmaster’s blog-within-a-blog. Continuously updated, newest items at the top. Please click here to learn more about The Phoenix Project, then click here to see a selection of Old War Dogs merchandise. All sales proceeds go to support The Phoenix…

I could easily have had something to say in reply to a post on religion in America, but here there’s so little in the way of an opinion overtly stated and supported that I don’t know where to begin.

Well, I don’t have a whole lot to say on this topic. And I also don’t have much time to mull the subject over because there are news feeds to monitor and other stories to follow up on. Which leaves me with a conundrum: do I post the religion links I noticed earlier and let the commenters have at them? Or do I sit on them and risk other bloggers posting them, and then I don’t even have fresh news to offer you guys anymore?

The truth is, if I only posted on subjects that I have strong, thoughtful opinions on, there’d be maybe three posts here a day. Sometimes you just gotta throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks. At the very least, you got to read two articles that you might not have otherwise heard about.

I take your point, don’t get me wrong. I’m just saying, there are competing considerations.

Plus, people seem to be into the religion meme today.

I think my high level of participation in the comments shows my high regard for the site and the hosts. Maybe on that basis, one will tolerate my attempt at a constructive critique and consider its product.

a “true” “progressive” leftist argues that gays have the right to marry, which is akin to saying that homosexuality is a legitimate identity trait, whereas the Bible says that homosexuality is an abomination;

accepting Christ as your Savior (becoming a Christian) means that you ask him to forgive you for your sins, meaning that you acknowledge what is sin and what is not;

if you believe that homosexuality is an acceptable lifestyle, you believe it is not a sin and therefore have rejected Christ’s forgiveness for sin (you have also rejected a portion of the Bible, which is essentially Christ Himself).

Hope everyone enjoyed that theology lesson. You don’t even have to be a Christian to agree that yes, that is reasonable logic.

And the religious services attended by U.S. renewalists tend to be quite different from the ones attended by others; more than half of U.S. pentecostals who report attending church say that the services they attend frequently include people speaking in tongues and manifesting other signs of the Spirit; the same is true for roughly three-in-ten charismatic church attenders in the U.S.

Jeebus!

And then there’s this:

And more than half (52%) of American pentecostals say that the government should take special steps to make the U.S. a Christian country, compared with only 25% among Christians overall.

So, 25 percent of all Christians want “special steps” to make this a Christian country? What is that supposed to mean exactly?

Harvard committee recommends returning religion to curriculum

Why do I have the feeling liberals are up to something no good?