In many ways, 2006 was the year of offense, and I don’t mean that in terms of the New Orleans Saints leading the NFL in yardage. Rather, in Religion circles, the news too often focused on offenses against God’s Word or those who are offended by God’s Word.
Chaplains praying in Jesus’ name while in uniform? Offensive. Faith-based prison programs? Unconstitutional. Mega-church pastors inviting pro-choice politicians to their church in the name of AIDS assistance? Apparently unacceptable. And let’s not forget the ever-present irony of how criticizing Muslims as easily-offended and violent may just cause them to become, well, easily-offended and violent (just ask the Pope and any Danish cartoonist). The “right” not to be offended and the cowering to victim-hood have become center-stage in religion today.
High-profile pastors took hits for their own sinful offenses. Churches across
Some of Crosswalk’s Religion Today features were more popular than others, but that’s not how we arrived at the list below. For instance, our No. 2 story in terms of page views involved an unfortunate young convert in
No, instead, these are the pieces that had the Crosswalk editors putting down their spiritual growth and parenting articles for water cooler discussion in 2006, and, sometimes, just maybe, getting a little offended.
10) Navy chaplain’s ongoing fight to pray in Jesus’ name
9)
8) Christian movies keep coming (End of the Spear, The Nativity, Facing the Giants (and it’s PG rating))
7) American Christians on the forefront of aid during and after Israeli/Lebanese conflict
6) Gnosticism Returns (Gospel of Judas/DaVinci Code simultaneous release)
5) Muslims offended (Danish cartoons, Pope’s speech)… cartoons offensive to Christians go unapologized for
4) ECUSA/Jefferts-Schori fallout
3) Rick Warren in the middle of divisive issues (global warming, AIDS,
2) Ted Haggard steps down from pastorate and NAE
And our top Religion Today story for 2006…
1) Amish response to