Harold O.J. Brown

Can an entire culture “be converted”—i.e., turn away from entrenched patterns of selfishness and self-indulgence and replace them with patterns of altruism?  Can an entire society begin to act in accordance with the Second Great Commandment, “Thou

Since the time of the Founding Fathers, Protestantism appeared to be the default religion in the United States.  At the end of World War II, when the United States began to enjoy superpower status, Mainline Protestantism (comprising the older

In Ephesians 6, the Apostle Paul writes, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (6:12).  Political scientist and lay theologian

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image . . .
Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them . . .

—Exodus 20:4,5

In the fourth chapter of St. Matthew’s Gospel, Satan tempts Jesus with

“Render to all what is due them,” writes Saint Paul, “Tax to whom tax is due, custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor” (Romans 13:7, NASB).  When a zealous Christian offered to help Mark Twain

“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.”

—Tertullian

The spread of Christianity was marked by a trail of blood, shed by myriad martyrs during the first three centuries of the Christian era.  Another trail of blood

A number of years ago, when I was teaching a ninth-grade religion class (in Switzerland, where religion is taught in public schools), one of the boys said to me, “All religions teach the same thing.” Although only 15, he was,

“Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?” (Matthew 15:3). Jesus had many negative things to say about the dangers of placing excessive emphasis on tradition; in the passage quoted above, he goes on to cite

In the early winter of 1999, much of the world is looking forward with eager anticipation or uneasy apprehension to the dawning of the Third Millennium. It is the third millennium A.D., of course, the beginning of the third thousand

In late summer last year, two United States embassies in East Africa were the target of murderous bomb attacks by Islamic terrorist groups. After ordering two retaliatory missile attacks on installations presumed to be connected with militant Islamic extremism, President

On the evening before His crucifixion, Jesus prayed what is known as the Great High Priestly Prayer. It is recorded for us in John 17. In that short chapter, addressing the Father in the presence of His disciples, He prayed

Austrian sociologist Hans Millendorfer claims to have discovered, at least in his native Austria, a perplexing correspondence: his statistics show a rise in abortions paralleled by a rise in civility. To those of us who consider abortion a violent and

Writing to Timothy, his younger brother in the faith, the Apostle Paul listed a number of attributes desirable in a bishop. His final admonition is this: “Moreover, he must have a good report of them which are without [outside]: lest

Among the sacraments of the Christian churches, the one most frequently received is the Lord’s Supper, also known as the Eucharist or Holy Communion. In the classic English language liturgy of the Book of Common Prayer, the ministrant offering the

A recent full-page advertisement in the Chicago Tribune, which no longer calls itself “The World’s Greatest Newspaper,” listed four documents that supposedly are foundational: the Magna Carta, the Treaty of Versailles, the Declaration of Independence, and the Infiniti Retailer

The phrase “America’s Christian Heritage” might irritate any hearers who do not want to be classed as members of the tribe that first received its name in Antioch (Acts 11:26). But wait: we recognize that one does not have to

“Remember thou, that it is better far

To pull a poor oar in the third boat

Than to be captain of the basketball team.”

Spoken by the editor of the Harvard Lampoon at freshman orientation, those words had life-changing impact

In February 1941, the world was at war. Nazism and fascism ruled virtually all of Europe and parts of Africa. Imperial Japan was poised to conquer much of East Asia. Joseph Stalin still controlled the world’s largest land mass, although