religion

My wife and I recently returned from vacation in England, where church bells in cities and villages still summon the faithful to prayer every day. Sadly, in this third Christian millennium, most no longer respond to the call. Religious faith has long since gone out of fashion.

The "Your Life, Your Choices" booklet didn't cause trouble at the Department of Veterans Affairs until late in President George W. Bush's second term.

Before the Episcopal Church suffers further fracture, the denomination might wisely take a cue from Barack Obama by summoning its leading antagonists to a summit. Recently, the president successfully reconciled a black professor and the white policeman who arrested him over beer in the White House rose garden. Sherry, rather than beer, might be preferred at a summit of Episcopalians.

There is nothing particularly newsworthy about a coalition of pro-lifers releasing a public manifesto that criticizes politicos who support abortion rights.

"It's violent, gory and disgusting," writes English critic Bryan Appleyard of Lars von Trier's upcoming film, "Antichrist." "What's worse," the critic claims, "it masquerades as art."

The Danish filmmaker credits his two-year bout with depression as inspiration for "Antichrist." He says he wrote the script "as a kind of therapy."

When I went off to college, I encountered a classmate who would become a lifelong friend. His name was Samuel Craig Plummer IV. Before I encountered Sam, I had known a few "juniors" who bore their fathers' given names, but no one who had perpetuated a family name for four consecutive generations.

The Rev. Gordon Atkinson had few specific goals when he started planning his 13-week sabbatical from his duties at Covenant Baptist Church near San Antonio.

"I knew that I didn't want to be in charge of anything," said Atkinson, long known as the "Real Live Preacher" to those who read his intensely personal online journal (reallivepreacher.com).

When septuplets were born to a Muslim couple in the nation's capital, the medical team that delivered the babies advised aborting the weaker siblings to give the stronger ones a better chance at life. Mother and father refused on religious grounds, insisting that since God is the creator, no human has the right to destroy innocent life.

In Catholic debates, it always helps to be able to quote the official Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Consider, for example, this reference to health care in its chapter on the biblical instruction, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

In the beginning, God blessed his creatures and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number"-- a commandment that men and women happily obeyed for ages with little regard for the consequences. But in 1798 Thomas Malthus warned that population growth, left unchecked, would outstrip the resources needed to feed, house, and employ the world's peoples.