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The question has entered the conversation.

Fifty years ago, Howard Johnson, a priest at the cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, visited the nascent Anglican Church in Nigeria. He was distressed at the the unnecessary “Britishness” of the Church…

“Being a Christian scholar is first and foremost about getting the facts right and it should not be about trying to make an historical figure match your religious and political views or agenda. Sloppy and misleading historical writing used for advancing an agenda harms the general reputation of Christians as scholars.”

If the Episcopal Church decides to clearly articulate its intention that all aspects of participation in the life of the church—including ordained ministry—are open to transgender persons, it will be the first mainline Protestant denomination to do so.

When I first thought about writing the book, I thought I was dealing with the same Scientology I remembered, but I’ve since realized that it has changed. We never thought of it as a religion back then! We would call it a Church, but we would “wink” because we were fighting to get tax-exempt status. But I know that Scientologists today believe that it’s a Church—a religion—and it is becoming one.

Forty-four percent say they don’t know what his religion is.

Qur’an + Torah + Gospels + Socrates = ….

As NAACP President Ben Jealous told the Times last week, “it’s become clear that, just as Bayard Rustin admonished us all, that we would either stand together or die apart.” “ Who admonished us?” readers must have asked. Bayard Rustin’s role as advisor to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and as organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (where King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech) should have assured his place in American social and political history. But Rustin has long been denied his proper place—largely because he was an openly gay man.

Haidt’s primary point is actually a good one: people on all sides of the political debate ought to listen more carefully, and try harder to understand one another. He correctly identifies a cardinal sin of so many liberals and lefties: failing to give conservatives an honest hearing. But it’s lousy strategy. If you want to win, you’ve got to have the best possible intelligence about what the other side is up to.