Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'islam'

December 26, 2008

Wilken on Islam

One of the most thought-provoking articles I’ve read lately is Robert Louis Wilken’s “Christianity Face to Face with Islam,” in the January 2009 issue of First Things. It’s accessible online only to subscribers, but you can find the publication at academic and high-quality municipal libraries and it will be freely available online in a month or two. Continue Reading...
June 25, 2008

Foreign policy and unintended consequences

Earlier this month “Red Letter Christian” Tony Campolo wrote a blog post for Jim Wallis’ God’s Politics blog that criticized the American government for not properly taking into account the effect its foreign policy has on fulfilling the Great Commission. Continue Reading...
March 26, 2008

Hoekstra: ‘Islam and Free Speech’

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Rep. Peter Hoekstra discusses the impending release of Fitna, a short film highly critical of Islam, by Geert Wilders, a member of the Dutch parliament. Hoekstra: Radical jihadists are prepared to use violence against individuals to stop them from exercising their free speech rights. Continue Reading...
March 26, 2008

“We must overcome fear”

In the Catholic Church, the Easter Vigil liturgy is usually the ceremony during which catechumens (non-Christians) and candidates (non-Catholic Christians) are respectively baptized and received into the Church. In Rome this Easter there was a particularly noteworthy baptism, presided over by Pope Benedict. Continue Reading...
February 21, 2008

Onward, Christian soldiers?

The head of the Church of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, made international headlines earlier this month when he suggested that the adoption of some aspects of Islamic sharia law into British law was “unavoidable” and discussed the compatibility of sharia law with the established legal system. Continue Reading...
February 15, 2008

‘A Patriarch in dire straits’

Bartholomew I My commentary this week looked at “Encountering the Mystery,” the new book from Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of the Orthodox Church. In 1971, the Turkish government shut down Halki, the partriarchal seminary on Heybeliada Island in the Sea of Marmara. Continue Reading...
February 05, 2008

Oh, what might have been!

From a review in the New Yorker magazine (HT) of David Levering Lewis, God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570 to 1215, in which the author clearly regrets that the Arabs did not go on to conquer the rest of Europe. Continue Reading...
December 17, 2007

Weigel on Jihad

The extraordinarily prolific George Weigel has another book out: Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism. Weigel’s books are without fail thought-provoking and clearly stated, though the force, clarity, and breadth of his thought will likely result in at least one or two points of disagreement with any reader. Continue Reading...
October 16, 2007

Why Did Christian Europe Advance?

A long and detailed essay on the topic is available at The Gates of Vienna. A very small sample: The end of religion, thus, didn’t herald an age of reason; it led to a new age of secular superstition and new forms of witch-hunts. Continue Reading...