Alan Wolfe thinks we are not much of a threat. In The Transformation of American Religion: How we Actually Live our Faith, Wolfe presents a sociological analysis of American religion that deserves attention. The bottom line of his study is that “American religion has been so transformed that we have reached the end of religion as we have known it.”

General Omar Bradley, the “soldier’s general” of World War II, once quipped: “I am convinced that the best service a retired general can perform is to turn in his tongue along with his suit, and to mothball his opinions.” The very active tongue of a very active general is attracting worldwide attention this week, and the controversy shows no signs of retiring.

In The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels called for the laboring classes of the world to join the communist revolution and promised assured liberation: “Workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.” In similar fashion, the prophets of religious pluralism promise world peace and true spiritual happiness if Christians will just abandon Christianity and join the pluralist revolution. Ready to join?

Must we believe in the Virgin Birth? In his recent column in The New York Times, Nicholas Kristof pointed to belief in the Virgin Birth as evidence that conservative Christians are “less intellectual.” [see this week's WebLog entries] Are we saddled with an untenable doctrine? Is belief in the Virgin Birth really necessary?

The major trade booksellers give little space or attention to works of theology, so when the big national chains put a theological title on prominent display, something is afoot. Alas, that something is usually not good.

The summer publishing season seems always to include a thriller that leaps to the top of the best-seller charts and stays there until the fall–when readers get serious and return to school and work. The Da Vinci Code is this year’s winner, sitting at the top of the Amazon.com ratings this week and listed at second place in the New York Times hardcover fiction list. The book was on the top of that list last week, and it has made the list for 18 straight weeks. Not bad for a book with a seemingly unmanageable mix of plot structure, conspiracy theories, and mountains of detail about Catholic orders, renaissance art, theological heresy, and theoretical mathematics. Hooked yet?