Americans are accustomed to a certain kind of public confession, argues Susan Wise Bauer — and that means a confession that is shaped by the Christian faith. Indeed, in her seminal book, The Art of the Public Grovel, Bauer argues that Americans are actually accustomed to a public confession that she describes as Augustinian.

The images streaming in from Haiti look like scenes from Dante’s Inferno. The scale of the calamity is unprecedented. In many ways, Haiti has almost ceased to exist.

As the celebration of Christmas fast approaches, our attention quickly goes to the familiar words of the infancy narratives found in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.  This is a healthy reflex.  After all, the Gospel of Jesus Christ rests upon the historicity of the events that took place in Bethlehem as Christ was born. Our understanding of the identity of Jesus Christ is directly rooted in these narratives and our confidence is in the fact that Matthew and Luke give us historically credible and completely truthful accounts of the events surrounding the birth of Christ.

Ellen Goodman is morally troubled. The liberal columnist for The Boston Globe surveys the moral landscape and laments “there’s no shame in the game.”

The death of Oral Roberts marks a significant milestone in the history of American Christianity. His life, spanning from 1918 to 2009, represents 91 years and almost a century of American religious history.

The travail of Tiger Woods entered a new chapter over the weekend as Accenture, a global consulting firm, severed all ties with the world’s most famous golfer. In doing so, Accenture became the first of Woods’s major sponsors to end its relationship with him. It is not likely to be the last.