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In any case, the vote hasn't happened yet, and Sloan may stay. But if he goes, Waco Tribune-Herald Assistant News Editor Joseph Gyure has a suggestion for his next job: Governor of Texas.

Saturday's New York Times ran an article by conservative-beat-reporter David D. Kirkpatrick on the next generation of conservatives. Among those highlighted is Caleb Stegall, founder of The New Pantagruel. All well and good, but Christianity Today readers will want to read this site not simply because it's "an irreverent Web site about religion and politics named for the jovial drunkard created by Rabelais" that the Times is promoting as a kind of new National Review. They'll want to read it because it's more or less the offspring of the now-deceased re:generation quarterly, a great magazine edited by CT columnist Andy Crouch. It's also edited by Caleb Stegall, who has written for our Books & Culture Corner. The latest issue of The New Pantagruel even has an article on the battle for Baylor.

The Times has been busy on the religion beat lately. Be sure to check out yesterday's front-page story on evangelical singles, which prominently features Camerin Courtney, an editor with our sister publications Christian Singles Today and Today's Christian Woman.

This weekend also saw Times columnist Nicholas Kristof return to the religion beat with "Jesus and jihad." His bottom line: Americans should be more critical of religious intolerance. And by religious intolerance he means non-universalism. Belief that non-believers will perish in hell, he says, is "not what America stands for, and I doubt that it's what God stands for." He also equates the latest Left Behind novel with the belief "that African-Americans were cursed as descendants of Noah's son Ham, and were intended by God to be enslaved."

Kristof, however, does not note (nor do three letters published in response to the column) that there's a fundamental difference between interpretations of the "curse of Ham," Left Behind's eschatology, and the doctrine of hell. The first was an application of an interpretation of an obscure text and a historical aberration. The second is a recent (19th-century construct drawn from the interpretation of various verses, but not one that has been held by the historic church. The third, however, the doctrine of hell, has been held universally by the Christian church for 2,000 years because it is explicitly taught in Scripture.

"I don't want to mock anyone's religious beliefs," says Kristof. "Yet ultimately I think it's a mistake to treat religion as a taboo. … Since I've praised the work that evangelicals do in the third world (Christian aid groups are being particularly helpful in Sudan, at a time when most of the world has done nothing about the genocide there), I also feel a responsibility to protest intolerance at home."

Well, fine. But let's recognize that doctrine is not the same as opinion. And let's also recognize that Christian work in the third world is motivated by the same concern as our discussion of hell—we are commanded by God to aid in his rescuing work.

Iraqi Christians:

• For Iraqi Christians, a shadow of insecurity | War has brought 'very real freedom' -- and dangers, archbishop says (The Washington Post)
• Radicals make liquor sales hard in Iraq | It's getting harder and harder to buy a beer in Baghdad. At least five stores selling liquor in the Ghadeer district alone were blown up by Islamic militants in the last week, prompting other store owners to close or to stop selling liquor (Associated Press)

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July (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48