Fewer foregone conclusions, please

Growing up as a pastor’s kid, my aversion to congregational meetings was earned honestly. I don’t know what it is about people, but time somehow becomes no object when contending for how you want the bathrooms remodeled. And I’m glad that people care about how their congregation is operating, but sometimes that concern translates into some pretty tense moments. I was reminded of my feelings about voters assemblies when reading this horribly imbalanced story about a Wisconsin Synod Lutheran congregation’s recent vote regarding a principal who had been accused of teaching contrary to the denomination’s position.


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Got news? Why did Stupak back down?

It’s the question hidden in many of the angry whispers in some corners of Washington, as well as the question behind the stunning plot twist that launched those public celebrations among the supporters of the Senate health-care reform bill.


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Religious exemption in health care reform?

On Saturday I mentioned that, amid the health care debate, there had been next-to no coverage of Christian health plans in which members receive no guarantee that their medical bills will get paid but take on faith that co-members will divide their expenses, just as they do each month for other co-members. It’s unclear if participants in this sharing plans will be exempted from the health care overhaul.


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Quietly awaiting execution

Saudi Arabia isn’t high on anybody’s list for a religious freedom award. But last year there were some hopeful signs for religious liberty advocates when the king dismissed the chief of the religious police and a cleric who had condoned killing owners of television networks that broadcast immoral content. He had also appointed a female deputy minister and changed the makeup of a body of religious scholars — who issue fatwas — to give more moderate Sunnis representation.


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An Aggie nerd considers his path

There is so, so much to like in the recent Dallas Morning News profile of a young Texan who is wrestling with the ultimate decision of whether or not to become a monk in the Cistercian community at Our Lady of Dallas, a monastery in Irving, near Dallas.


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Health care: So who is cheering?

As you would expect, my morning email was full of angry press statements from conservative groups — with a heavy evangelical-right flavor. Most of the emails attacked Rep. Bart Stupak and his circle of Democrats who, in the end, agreed to back the U.S. Senate health-care reform legislation, after President Barack Obama agreed to issue an executive order clarifying that this bill would not end the ban on federal funding of abortions.


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