RealClearReligion Articles

The number 40 has profound Biblical significance. Rain fell for 40 days and nights after Noah built the ark. Moses spent 40 days on Mount Sinai receiving God’s law. Jesus fasted for 40 days before His ministry. In each case, God worked powerfully during these 40 days. He used this time to bring about transformation and set eternally consequential events in motion.  Might that be precisely what the Church and Christians worldwide need today? Could God be calling each of us to a period of deep communion and intentional time in His presence?  I certainly think so. And it’s...

Did the hand of God have anything to do with the birth of America? There’s a great new movie that gives a resounding, “Yes,” and it’s called “The American Miracle.”  It’s based on the best-selling book with the same title by Michael Medved, a popular radio show host, author, political commentator, and film critic. Medved hosts the new movie, weaving commentary throughout the film, which features on-screen insights from Paul Kengor, Jane Cook, Professor Robert George, Mary Thompson, Stephen Meyer, and many others.  Recently, I interviewed...

Artificial intelligence shows no signs of slowing down, and neither do the warnings about the threat it poses to the future of humanity. Within days of his election, Pope Leo XIV acknowledged AI’s “immense potential” for the good of humanity, but also pointed to “new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice, and labor.” Citing the ramp-up in AI development as the next “great industrial revolution,” the new Pope suggested working-class people are at particular risk of AI disruption. He even chose the...

Until the glorious return of Jesus Christ, it is unlikely that evangelicals and the Catholic Church will ever see eye to eye on certain core doctrinal issues. Whether it’s sola scriptura, Marian devotion, praying to saints, or ecclesiastical authority, the gap is real — and not going anywhere soon. And yet, despite these differences, there is a growing urgency — one rooted not in compromise but in conviction — for collaboration. Why? Because we are living in an era where the very foundation of Western civilization is under siege. The only worldview that offers moral...

On Sunday, June 1, eight people were injured in an antisemitic attack in Boulder, Colo., after a man yelled, “free Palestine” and threw incendiary devices at people participating in a walk and vigil for Israeli hostages being held by Hamas.   Nearly two weeks ago, two Israeli Embassy staffers — Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim — were gunned down outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., as they left an event celebrating Jewish American Heritage Month. Their attacker reportedly also shouted, “Free, free Palestine” while being...

Vice President J.D. Vance, speaking recently at the American Dynamism Summit, said, “. . . I think back to Pope John Paul II’s opening lines of the encyclical Laborem Exercens: ‘Through work, man must earn his daily bread and contribute to the continual advance of science and technology, and above all, to elevating unceasingly the cultural and moral level of the society within which he lives.’”  Both John Paul II and Vance are referring to the universal human need to innovate, to be creative. Of course, human beings are creative in the first place because...

The shooting last Wednesday night of two Israeli diplomats, a couple that were soon to be engaged, was a horrible act of violence. It comes as anti-Semitism in America is increasing on college campuses and elsewhere. Many protesters reject Israel and embrace Hamas, which officially states, “Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes.”  An American Jewish Committee survey last year found one-third of Jews in the U.S. were targeted by anti-Semitism in the previous 12 months. What made last’s week shooting so egregious...

Memorial Day marks the time we remember those who have fallen in service of our country. It’s wonderful that many Americans take time out to honor those who died that we might be free. One aspect of military service that is often neglected these days is the multitude of official prayers and acknowledgements of God through the two and a half centuries of America as a nation. The late Col. Ronald D. Ray of Kentucky served in the Vietnam War with great valor. His funeral post notes: “During the Tet Offensive and other campaigns…he was twice awarded the Silver Star for...

In the book The Morality of Self-Defense and Military Action: The Judeo-Christian Tradition, author David B. Kopel objectively discusses difficult and controversial topics of moral philosophy that spill over into hotter political issues, such as the morality of armed self-defense, the justification for revolutions, resistance to tyranny, and engagement in collective military action (war) as explained by the Judeo-Christian inheritance — a main pillar of Western civilization. Religious and philosophic authorities — such as St. Augustine of Hippo (AD 354–430), who lived near...

A Harvard study has reported that one in five American children lives in a home with parental substance abuse. To make matters worse, children whose parents use drugs and misuse alcohol are three times more likely to be physically, sexually or emotionally abused and four times more likely to be neglected than their peers. The stories may vary, but the outcome remains the same in far too many lives. Kids left, day after day, unsupervised and uncared for, while their parents spend their days lost to drugs, alcohol and other addictions. Mom and Dad never make them a meal,...

“For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body.” Ephesians 5:23 This profound truth — that Christ reigns as head of the church — carries immense weight. Countless martyrs have sacrificed their lives to defend it. In 17th-century Scotland, Covenanters huddled in misty glens, clutching tattered Bibles. Hunted for rejecting the king’s claim over the church, they sang psalms defiantly, their voices echoing across the moors. A mother, shielding her child, whispered of...

Some may look at the pending Colorado legislation destroying parental rights and wrongly see the last gasps of a dying woke regime.    The dystopian state house bill, HB 25-1312 or better known as the “Kelly Loving Act,” allows the Colorado government to remove a child from her parents if parents refuse to go along with her gender dysphoria and self-styled new identity. It represents the most totalitarian legal destruction of parental rights in American history.  The bill passed the Colorado House and Senate. To understand why this destructive legislation might...

To appreciate the promise and probable, future impact of Leo XIV, one must first consider his chosen name predecessor, Leo XIII. Widely known as “the Pope of the Workers,” Leo XIII is best remembered for reviving the Church’s relevance in a rapidly modernizing world. In 1891, he penned what is inarguably the most consequential document on socio-economics the Catholic Church has ever produced — Rerum Novarum, “of revolutionary change.” Rerum Novarum addressed how the Industrial Revolution had altered the daily lives of the human family and advocated changes...

In 1840, a nine-year-old girl, Savitribai, born into Maharashtra's oppressed Mali caste, was wed to thirteen-year-old Jyotirao Phule. This was no ordinary union — it was a cosmic detonation, a cataclysm to upend the Brahminical empire of caste and patriarchy.  Savitribai Phule went on to become India's first female teacher, a poet whose verses were flaming scythes, and a juggernaut who shattered the chains enslaving women and lower castes which make up over 70% of India's population. Together with her husband Jyotirao, her iron-willed comrade, she waged a tireless war on the...

Not only is May the month we celebrate Mother’s Day in the U.S., but more importantly, it is also our Blessed Mother’s month.  Fittingly, May ends with the Feast of the Visitation, when the Virgin Mary, in her generosity and humility, left her home to help her cousin Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist. Elizabeth’s response to Mary was gratitude for her charity. Mary’s humble response to the opportunity to serve was to gift us with one of the most beautiful prayers in all of Christendom: The Magnificat.  Mary, perfect in every way, serves as a...

Each year, Mother’s Day offers us a moment to honor the women who have shaped our lives through their love, faith, and sacrifice. But this day should do more than spark gratitude — it should remind us of a deeper truth: motherhood is a ministry. And just like any ministry, it is one that needs to be uplifted by the body of Christ. To be a mother is to be called into a ministry that is both deeply personal and eternally significant. It’s a ministry of presence — of being there when no one else can be. It is a ministry of teaching — instilling values not only with...

Mother’s Day can hold all kinds of emotions. For some of us, it’s a joyful day, and we give loving sentiments to our parents and receive them from children. For others of us, it’s a hard day because a relationship with a child or parent is difficult, or we’ve lost a child or parent. Even mention of the day can pour salt into a wound. Today, be encouraged you to do two things. The first is to process your own feelings about the day before the throne of grace. Before you go out and “do the right thing” or fall apart when you least expect it, take...

When the pilgrims settled in what would later become Massachusetts, they were seeking religious liberty after years of persecution in Europe. The pilgrims were the first of many such people seeking to make a new life lived in liberty for their families in the New World. Remembering such religious persecution, the founding generation adopted the First Amendment to prevent the federal government (and later state and local governments through the Fourteenth Amendment) from “prohibiting the free exercise” of religion. That protection for religious Americans should not act merely as a...

After six years, Rafael Zaki still hasn’t been guaranteed his Charter rights. Zaki, a Coptic Christian, was first expelled from the University of Manitoba’s medical school in 2019, after he published an essay on Facebook comparing abortion to other human atrocities. The post, the university and 18 confidential complainants alleged, was “unprofessional,” and called into question his ability to understand his responsibilities as a doctor. After the university overturned the expulsion due to procedural errors, he was again expelled recently for the same...