baptism

Revisiting the Catholic baptism pronoun controversy

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Last week we brought to your attention the Phoenix, Arizona Catholic priest who resigned after he used the wrong pronoun while performing baptisms. Over at The Washington Post, Michelle Boorstein gets Rev. Thomas Reese, a Jesuit and religion journalist, to answer some questions about the controversy. Here is a taste: Q: Are specific words important? If so, why would some priests think they can just pick alternates? A: The hierarchy wants priests to follow the words … [Read more...] about Revisiting the Catholic baptism pronoun controversy

What is the Great Commission?

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Yesterday I did a post on John Allen Chau, the missionary killed at the hands of an indigenous tribe on the island of New Sentinel off the coast of India.  You can read it here. It is hard to gauge exactly how the post was received based on "likes," retweets, and Facebook comments, but I think its fair to say that about half of the readers (or at least those who responded in some way) liked the piece and half of the readers hated it.  Most of my academic historian friends … [Read more...] about What is the Great Commission?

The Author’s Corner with Linford D. Fisher

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Linford D. Fisher is Assistant Professor of History at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. This interview is based on his book Decoding Roger Williams: The Lost Essay of Rhode Island's Founding Father (Baylor University Press, 2014).JF: What led you to write Decoding Roger Williams?LDF:In some ways, Decoding Roger Williams came to me, not I to it. In 2011, an interdisciplinary group of undergraduates at Brown caught wind of a mysterious book at the John Carter Brown … [Read more...] about The Author’s Corner with Linford D. Fisher