Turkey’s Erdogan wants to dismantle his country’s secular traditions. I’m worried about the Hagia Sophia — will he turn it back into a mosque? Read more.
christianity
The Virgin Blanca and Baby Jesus — Still Smiling This Advent Season After 700 Years
The Virgin Blanca, a 700-year-old Romanesque statue of a smiling Virgin Mary and her smiling son, continues to enchant visitors to Toledo, Spain. Read more.
Matthias Church — Budapest’s Splashy, Gorgeous, Over-the-Top Church of Kings
The spectacular painted interiors of Budapest’s beloved Matthias Church make it a must-see for lovers of folk art and art nouveau. Read more.
Christmas Is Big. Bigger Than Christianity — And Donald Trump
Christmas is big. Christianity’s biggest holiday is leaving the religion in the dust with 15 times the Internet mentions of Christianity. Read more.
James Dobson: Bully Your Pet, Hit Your Kid, Make Them Obey You–And God
In his 1978 parenting book, “The Strong-Willed Child,” James Dobson says disobedient childen, like dogs, must be spanked into submission to parents and God. Read more.
The Hagia Sophia: Where Christianity and Islam Coexist — and Clash
As an American Christian, I’d never known how it feels to have my faith’s most cherished symbols obliterated by a colonizing force. Until I entered the Hagia Sophia. Read more.
Theologian Harvey Cox: You Don’t Have to Believe to Be a Christian
I’d like to recommend Harvey Cox’s newest book to all my non-believer friends. So many of the sophisticated, highly educated people I know labor under the assumption that they have to believe – to assent intellectually to – the factuality of traditional Christian teaching. They don’t. And here’s why: The idea of a fixed creed to which a true Christian must subscribe dates back, not to the life of Jesus, but to the emperor Constantine. Read more.