Religion and Violence
Religion can breed both violence and peace – the same religion, that is. I found this curious thesis reading recently Miroslav Volf’s A Public Faith. For Volf, a Croatian theologian […]
Tag Archives: violence
Vikings, Monks, and a Good Old Story
Of the the History Channel’s biggest recent hits has been the historical drama, Vikings, based on the legendary ninth century Norwegian, Ragnar Lothbrok. The History Channel has long been struggling […]
What Are We Asking For?
A clergy friend and I were talking over coffee recently about how being in this line of work is something of a magnet for human pain. As soon as people […]
Why did God allow that?
Why did God allow this evil act? I don’t know. But if God suffers with us to forge a perfect paradise out of this mess, offering his life to save undeserving people, I guess it is ok not to know.
Pain Management
My daughter has lately been coming to terms with the horrors of World War 2. They’ve been studying this period of history in school, and she recently watched a movie […]
Christ Have Mercy
A while back I was talking over coffee with a young man who had spent several months studying primate social behaviour in Africa. I asked him what, if anything, had […]
“You have to learn how to die”
How can one fight to produce peace? How can one win a war without causing more wars in the future? These questions hit me, as funny as it may be, […]
Stanley Fish and the emptiness of generic ‘grace’
Not long ago, Stanley Fish (professor of Humanities at Florida International University and public intellectual) took an opportunity to respond to critics who thought that a recent Coen brothers’ film, […]
Religion, Violence, and the “Higher Questions”
When my kids were younger, I would often take refuge from the delights of dragging unwilling toddlers through a shopping mall by camping out for a few minutes at one […]
A Note to Obama Before He Bombs Syria…
How do we stop cycles of vengeance and violence? How can international powers intervene effectively in a brutal civil war like Syria’s? What can we say to someone who has […]
Wondering Fair 