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by Howard MummaHoward Mumma is the author of Albert Camus and the MinisterAdapted from Albert Camus and the Minister, published by Paraclete Press.Reprinted in The Christian Century by arrangement with the author and publisher. This article appeared in The Christian Century, June 7-14 pp. 644-647. Copyright by The Christian Century Foundation; used by permission. Current articles and subscription information can be found at www.christiancentury.org. This material was prepared for Religion Online by Ted and Winnie Brock.SUMMARYAlbert Camus on baptism, the Bible, and church membership.During several summers in the 1950s, Howard Mumma, a Methodist pastor, served as guest minister at the...

There was a song, in the 1970's, titled "Cruel To Be Kind", performed by Nick Lowe. The lyrics, in part, read "You've gotta be cruel to be kind, in the right measure, cruel to be kind, it's a very fine line." Recently, a relative and I happened to share a particular viewpoint about a particular issue, and I celebrated the agreement. Yet, she implied she wanted to understand me better, to understand why I hold the beliefs I do. I seek to be understood. My spiritual life has drifted from Roman Catholicism, to an exploration of Judaism (my father coming...

Did the horrors of the Great War cause Canadian soldiers to lose their faith? Or is it true that there were no atheists in the trenches? The war has generally been seen as a powerfully disillusioning experience. Books such as Paul Fussell’s widely influential The Great War and Modern Memory portray the war as the origins of modern skepticism and cynicism. The idea of a “lost generation” of disillusioned Anglo-American vets is a widely accepted one. The situation in Canada, however, is a little more ambiguous. In his study of the war’s impact on Canadian culture, Death So Noble, Jonathan...

When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.(Matthew 12:34-36),There was a time when the continent of Europe was as...

Neo-orthodoxy is the term used to identify an existentialist variety of Christianity. Because it denies the essential objective basis of truth—the absolute truth and authority of Scripture—neo-orthodoxy must be understood as pseudo-Christianity. Its heyday came in the middle of the twentieth century with the writings of Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, Paul Tillich, and Reinhold Niebaur. Those men echoed the language and the thinking of [Soren] Kierkegaard, speaking of the primacy of “personal authenticity,” while downplaying or denying the significance of objective truth. Barth, the father of neo-orthodoxy, explicitly acknowledged his debt to Kierkegaard. Neo-orthodoxy’s attitude toward Scripture is a microcosm...

Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolor disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb.

In an introduction to his standout lecture series on existentialism Professor Robert C. Solomon summarizes and defines existentialism as follows: ”The message of existentialism, unlike that of many more obscure and academic philosophical movements, is about as simple as can be. It is that every one of us, as an individual, is responsible—responsible for what we do, responsible for who we are, responsible for the way we face and deal with the world, responsible, ultimately, for the way the world is. It is, in a very short phrase, the philosophy of “no excuses!” Life may be difficult; circumstances may be...

I thought it was those French existentialists who were supposed to be the gloomy ones, morosely sipping their espressos at Left Bank cafés while contemplating the end of everything. But according to Agence France Presse, of all people it's Fred Thompson who wallows in the Slough of Despond. Check out this line that AFP, which has an odd corporate status by which it is partially controlled and subsidized by the French government, slipped into the end of an article on Thompson's campaign plans: He harbors a dark world view of looming future threats and has accused NATO allies of slumbering...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A fresh wave of atheistic books has hit the market this autumn, some climbing onto best-seller lists in what proponents see as a backlash against the way religion is entwined in politics. "Religion is fragmenting the human community," said Sam Harris, author of "Letter to a Christian Nation," No. 11 on the New York Times nonfiction list on October 15. There is a "huge visibility and political empowerment of religion. President George W. Bush uses his first veto to deny funding for stem cell research and scientists everywhere are horrified," he said in an interview. Religious polarization...

A fresh wave of atheistic books has hit the market this autumn, some climbing onto best-seller lists in what proponents see as a backlash against the way religion is entwined in politics. "Religion is fragmenting the human community," said Sam Harris, author of "Letter to a Christian Nation," No. 11 on the New York Times nonfiction list on October 15. There is a "huge visibility and political empowerment of religion. President George W. Bush uses his first veto to deny funding for stem cell research and scientists everywhere are horrified," he said in an interview. Religious polarization is part of...

In a recent write-up of Gore's visit to the Cannes Film Festival to promote his new film on global warming, which premiered Wednesday in Los Angeles, Huffington hailed the "new Gore" as the "hottest star in town," beating out Bruce Willis and Tom Hanks. Gore told Huffington that this was his second trip to Cannes. "The first was when I was 15 years old and came here for the summer to study the existentialists - Sartre, Camus. ... We were not allowed to speak anything but French!" This, gushed Huffington, "may explain his pitch-perfect French accent." Perhaps. Though according to...

Duh! But...the runners-up are fascinating. Folks, it is official. An on-line quiz proves that I'm 100% Catholic. Finally, an independent instrument confirms what we all suspected, including myself, of what my theological worldview. There you have it, in black-and-white! You scored as Roman Catholic. You are Roman Catholic. Church tradition and ecclesial authority are hugely important, and the most important part of worship for you is mass. As the Mother of God, Mary is important in your theology, and as the communion of saints includes the living and the dead, you can also ask the saints to intercede for you....

As I have noted on occasion, there are three values systems competing for world dominance: Islam, European style secularism/socialism and Judeo-Christian values. As the competition in America is between the second two (in Europe, Judeo-Christian values are dying while Islam is increasing its influence), my columns on Judeo-Christian values have concentrated on differences between Judeo-Christian and secular values. Perhaps the most significant difference between them, though one rarely acknowledged by secularists, is the presence or absence of ultimate meaning in life. Most irreligious individuals, quite understandably, do not like to acknowledge the inevitable and logical consequence of their irreligiosity --...

January 2005 Sartre vs. CamusAlgis Valiunas The greatest French writer of the 20th century was Marcel Proust, but in their day, Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) and Albert Camus (1913-1960) enjoyed an intellectual cachet that Proust in his own lifetime could only have dreamed of. Each was a novelist, a playwright, a philosopher, and a political intellectual, and in these various lines of work both were the acclaimed eminences of their time and place. For a while they were considered an item: the twin geniuses of existentialism, the French philosophical movement they pioneered and embodied. And indeed they were often together,...

Translated French to English -------It is the new illusion of the French. Depities by a widening which diluted their capacity in Europe, they dream of political Europe which would organize itself around the Franco-German couple. Would come then a second circle, a Europe-market corresponding more or less to the current Union, while a third circle, more abstract, would include Turkey, the Ukraine, the Caucasus and the Mediterranean basin. Actually, rare which is those believe in Brussels with this idea of hard core, launched in 1994 by the German Christian Democrats Karl Lamers and Wolfgang Schãuble, and begun again six years...

Camus as Conservative: A post 9/11 reassessment of the work of Albert Camus Murray Soupcoff The Guardian -- that last fanatical bastion of English left-wing obstinacy and foolishness -- published a unique book review honouring the latest Penguin edition of The Plague, the enduring fictional allegory of human suffering and sacrifice, written by French existentialist novelist Albert Camus. It was particularly surprising that The Guardian, of all publications, would publish what was really a revised introduction to the latest English-language edition of The Plague, since Camus' unique philosophical and political point of view was always so different from that of...

COMMUNISM IN AMERICA: Ann Coulter recently spoke about Joseph McCarthy and called him an American patriot and prophet who was way ahead of his time. Mr. McCarthy recognized Communist infiltration into our society and political system and the danger this posed to the future of the U.S. He was demonized and discredited. Why? Because he was exposing Communism in America. To those who believe that the threat of Communism disovled with the breakup of the United Soviet Socialist Republic, that is what they want you to believe. Communism is alive and well IN AMERICA TODAY. Our universities have been taken...

COMMUNISM IN AMERICA: Ann Coulter recently spoke about Joseph McCarthy and called him an American patriot and phrophet who was way ahead of his time. Few people paid any attention to her comments while many screamed foul but I give her credit because Mr. McCarthy recognized Communist infiltration into our society and political system and the danger this posed to the future of the U.S. He was demonized and discredited. Why? Because he was exposing Communism in America. To those who believe that the threat of Communism disovled with the breakup of the United Soviet Socialist Republic, that is what...

Hi I Am SmokeyWelcome to my establishment!

From "TransExodus: The Enduring Secular Reformation, Pluralist Transhumanism, and Posthuman Pilgrims", by George P. Dvorsky, February 16, 2003: A large community of genetically modified posthumans and fyborgs, fed up with antiquated and restrictive biolegislation, depart Earth to parts unknown. Similarly, a group of clones, hoping to flee religious persecution and threats from terrorists, build a spacecraft and head to Rigel Kentaurus. And unnerved by the revivalist turn taken by the World Government and its parliamentary human majority, an entire population of cyborgs permanently upload themselves into a secure and massive supercomputer on Titan and establish an isolationist polis of their...