Friday digest
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Dear Jesus, Am I broken enough yet?
At youth group and church camp, I learned to perform my own unworthiness. It took years to recognize the spiritual harm this caused.
The Scopes Monkey Trial and the evolution of fundamentalism
A staged legal proceeding in a small town became the catalyst for a century of culture wars.
Body counts: The dark side of Christian history
With its long coastline, rugged mountains and haunting sand dunes, Oman is a paradise for desert lovers, hikers and boaters. Muscat, the capital city, is a gem—its arched white buildings and flat roofs squeezed between the blue ocean and black mountains. Yet call me an egghead, but what I remember most from a trip to Oman is a booklet I read there with an ominous title: Body Count: A Quantitative Review of Political Violence Across World Civilizations (2009). In it, author Naveed Sheikh claims that “the Christian civilization emerges as the most violent and genocidal in the world history.” Compared to Islam, Christianity is a clear winner: 31.94 million deaths by Muslims to 177.94 million deaths by Christians.
A new pope’s call to unity
I was in the second row for Pope Leo’s installation. I am cautiously optimistic about what I heard.