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Category: Religion

  • The Scandal Driving the Church Sex Scandal

    By Selwyn Duke We’ve all heard the story.  Hundreds of young sexual-abuse victims long afraid to come forward for fear of embarrassment and scorn, abusers escaping prosecution and quietly moving to different jurisdictions, authorities covering up the crimes to avoid scandal and litigation.  It’s a saga of grave, grave sin.

  • Catholic Church Sex Scandal & Celibacy

    By Selwyn Duke After getting in my car the other night, this writer turned on a radio show hosted by a man renowned as a rare moderate in talk radio, although he’s most notable for only moderately deep thinking. He was talking about the Catholic Church sex scandal, and he fielded a caller proposing a…

  • Why Many American Christians Really are Un-Christian

    By Selwyn Duke In this age of media insolvency and newsroom job cuts, I sometimes think that restaurant reviewers are doubling as religion writers.  After all, both today seem to treat their subjects as matters of taste.  In fact, I expect to soon open a modern newspaper’s religion page and read something akin to the…

  • Students Told to Write Essay on How They Would Make Deal with Devil

    By Selwyn Duke God may not have a place in the modern American classroom, but the Devil is a different story. That is, at least in one North Carolina high school. After reading the short story “The Devil and Tom Walker” — which involves a character who makes a deal with Satan but then balks…

  • Will Politically Incorrect Opinion Become a Hate Crime?

    By Selwyn Duke Many of us have heard about Geert Wilders, the Dutch parliamentarian currently on trial in Holland because he criticized Islam. It’s shocking to many that you could be charged with a hate crime for expressing an opinion, but such prosecutions are not unheard of in the Western world beyond American shores. After…

  • The Crusades: When Christendom Pushed Back

    Were the Crusades really expansionist ventures by an imperialist Europe? Or were they something else entirely? By Selwyn Duke The year is 732 A.D., and Europe is under assault. Islam, born a mere 110 years earlier, is already in its adolescence, and the Muslim Moors are on the march. Growing in leaps and bounds, the…

  • What is More Troubling than Pat Robertson’s Remarks?

    By Selwyn Duke Of all the responses to the devastation in Haiti, the most copy-worthy is televangelist Pat Robertson’s claim that the earthquake was divine retribution.  In making his case, he told a story about how Haitian leaders long ago made a pact with Satan, promising to serve him if he would help vanquish their…

  • Bravo to Brit Hume: Why Faith is Not a Private Matter

    By Selwyn Duke Not too many things raise my eyebrows in these days of through-the-looking-glass America, where I fully expect up to be down, left to be right and right to be wrong.  It’s not that I’m a pessimist — just a realist.  And this is why hearing mainstream-media newsman Brit Hume recommend Christianity over…

  • The Christmas Controversy: Duke Responds to Reader

    Karl wrote: Mr. Duke: I sent your link to my list. This came in from a fellow who lives in south Africa. He's a good man. He gave me permission to forward to you. If you have time to correspond with him, I would be interested in being copied. Sent: 12/24/2009 12:09:14 P.M. Eastern Standard…

  • Pagan Propaganda: The Other Attack on Christmas

    By Selwyn Duke Ah, Christmastime.  Manger scenes and mistletoe, trees and tinsel, Santa and celebration, gift-giving and gratitude . . . and the ACLU roasting traditions on an open fire.  Sadly, the last thing has become as much a seasonal expectation as the others, and the American Communist Lawyers Union’s practice of suing our culture…