Rejecting or reinterpreting traditional religious beliefs has always undermined family relationships, communities of faith, and the general coherence of the public. Many who haven’t crossed the threshold of a religious building in decades (if ever) hold rigidly to the privileges they believe religion provides them. Toy with those beliefs and you are unwittingly challenging the rights of the privileged, rights they too frequently enjoy denying those who do not share their beliefs. And those who do participate in religious communities with regularity are often invested in language and ritual they believe is integral to their experience. “Without reciting the Lord’s Prayer when we gather, how will we remember who we are?” they worry.
It was an historical illusion anyway, a cherished and romantic notion practiced in all kinds of theoretical venues. The idea that the lands that once constituted the British Empire …
The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Reverend and Right Honorable Dr. Rowan Williams, has recently announced his plans to retire at year’s end. This announcement was greeted with …
Recently, the New York Times ran a major interview with Professor Richard Dawkins of Oxford University under the banner headline of “A Knack for Bashing Orthodoxy.” This world famous …
In the United Kingdom about ten miles from the ancient Roman city of Chester, inside the northern edge of a country called Wales, is located an institution that calls …