After what I and many consider to be the disaster of Benedict's papacy, the future of the Catholic Church will be writ large in the coming months.

The claim that our religious beliefs and practices are right because they are ancient goes way back in our history. But an important new book points out that Christian heresy did not emerge when some misguided Christians deviated from a "pure" and "original" orthodoxy.

In late summer 2007, I interviewed Dr. Hinson for the religious satire magazine The Wittenburg Door. Contract signed and article sold, it was to appear in a spring 2008 issue; instead, the legendary magazine vanished into the night.

Most of the world's Protestants adhere to a characteristic message that defines peace with God as a result of the'gospel: God's merciful gift revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.