---

With students heading back to college all across the nation, we take a slight pause from our typical discussions on religion to examine the current state and potential future of higher education with Dr. Hunter Baker, dean of instruction at Union University, and author of two important articles on the future of higher education and Christian universities.

[ READ THE FULL ARTICLE ]

---

Prof. Rodney Stark returns to discuss the final part of his monumental book, “The Triumph of Christianity.” We pick up the story of Christianity with the Protestant Reformation and take it up to the contemporary period. Along the way, we talk about the Catholic Counter-Reformation, the Spanish Inquisition, Christianity’s transfer to the Western Hemisphere and what is becoming of this faith tradition today.

[ READ THE FULL ARTICLE ]

---

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops recently released a document on religious liberty that criticized a new regulatory provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a., Obamacare) requiring employers to provide insurance coverage for contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs. Prof. Phillip Muñoz (Notre Dame) helps us wade through this controversy explaining the bishops’ argument, the politics surrounding this issue, and the various streams of Catholic social thought including the principle of subsidiarity. While primarily focused on health care (and specifically issues related to reproductive health), we take our discussion into other areas of religious freedom that the Catholic Church and others have considered important.

Explore our extensive archives, subscribe to us on iTunes, and stay up-to-date by “liking” our Facebook page.

[ READ THE FULL ARTICLE ]

---