The radical ideology of gender and sexual fluidity and of transgenderism in the 21st century has reached an absurd level. Consider a recent ACLU objection to a sales tax on tampons and similar products: “How can we recognize that barriers to menstrual access are a form of sex discrimination without erasing the lived experiences of trans men and non-binary people who menstruate, as well as women who don’t?”

Matthew Lee Anderson writes: “We can name the moment the COVID-19 pandemic reached the center of the American consciousness: around 8:30 p.m., Central Standard Time, on Wednesday, March 11. In the span of a single hour, the president addressed the nation, the National Basketball Association suspended all its games, and Tom Hanks announced he had tested positive for the illness. Within 24 hours, every major sports league had followed suit, and the prospect of winning $72 in the office March Madness pool was officially stripped from workers across the country.” The COVID-19 pandemic has struck at the heart of our illusory security.

The coronavirus currently racing across the world and now America has fostered fear and, for some, panic. Fear of the unknown is riveting and saps us of our trust in almost everything, including God. The fear and panic in response to the coronavirus are exacerbated by the subsequent carnage in the equity and financial markets. You see it in people’s eyes as you talk with them and you hear it in their conversation. We are facing something we cannot control—and it causes panic.

One of the most significant and contentious issues under discussion during the Catholic Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazonian Region, held in October 2019, was the question of whether to allow married men in that region to become priests. The reason for this consideration is the significant shortage of priests among indigenous people groups in the Amazon region. “Due to the shortage, many indigenous Catholics in that region are unable to regularly celebrate the Mass and receive other forms of pastoral care.”

The cultural and ethical confusion over the transgender phenomenon in western civilization is manifested in several ways. For example, this confusion poses potential danger to children 12 and over through the use of puberty blocking drugs. These are children who purportedly are suffering from “gender dysphoria”—the distress caused by feeling that one’s sex at birth and gender identity does not match.

The phrase “climate change” is an incendiary one. There are the “alarmists” who often posit a scenario of end-of-life-as-we know-it. And there are the “deniers,” who argue that it is all a hoax. But any intellectually honest person cannot deny the partial relationship between human emissions of greenhouse gases and a warming climate, which cannot be denied. Being concerned about climate change is a genuine expression of our faith as Christians.

Two candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination—Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren—have declared war on American capitalism. Columnist Bret Stephens cites Brian Riedl of the Manhattan Institute, who has tried to calculate the costs of the programs these two candidates have proposed

Should Christians accommodate to their culture, to its values, its virtues, its ethical standards? Instinctively, the answer is no. But it is important to understand what the American culture believes and values. What are its standards for authority? Since at least the 1960s, America has accepted two sources of cultural authority

Philosopher and theologian, David Bentley Hart, currently a professor at the University of Notre Dame, is often provocative and controversial. A former Anglican, he converted to Eastern Orthodoxy and writes prominently on major doctrinal issues of Christianity. His most recent book, That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell and Universal Salvation, argues for universalism—that ultimately God will save everyone, thereby rejecting any belief in a literal hell.

Why do people reject God and embrace an atheistic worldview? Are they convinced that biblical Christianity is irrational, nonsensical? Are the “nones” doubting their faith or questioning their faith because of rational argumentation? Are atheists and/or the now infamous “nones” rejecting Jesus because of their deep-seated, well-thought-through convictions, or are there other explanations?