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An Open Letter to CEO Jeff Smisek On United Airlines’ Blasphemous Safety Video

…ng of something even more hideous. The melody disappeared entirely to make way for the announcer’s voiceover—“Please make sure your phone and all electronics are switched off and stowed”—as a single chord hovered to a simple four-beat pulse in the fashion of light pop radio. Gone were the jaunty, urbane syncopations that will forever mark the arrival of the jazz idiom—and with it the bluesy sinews of the American soul—to the hallowed halls of West…

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Pricey Tickets, Cranky Citizens, and Priests Behind Bars as Philadelphia Prepares For Papal Visit

…e contributed to the decline of an archdiocese that once rivaled Boston or New York. The same month Pope Benedict announced the next WMOF, Monsignor Lynn of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia became the first diocesan administrator convicted in the United States of re-assigning pedophile priests. Lynn was recently incarcerated at Curran Freehold Prison, the prison that Pope Francis will visit in Philadelphia—but the priest was moved at the end of Jul…

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Everything Was Better When We Had God In Our Schools

…nt of his classmates, he was acquitted. An April 30, 1866 editorial in the New York Times argued against students carrying pistols, citing “…pistols being dropped on the floor at balls or being exploded in very inconvenient ways. A boy of 12 has his pantaloons made with a pistol pocket; and this at a boarding-school filled with boys, who, we suppose, do or wish to do the same thing. We would advise parents to look into it, and learn whether shooti…

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The Key to Understanding the Federalist Society Isn’t Originalism — It’s This 800-Year Old Tradition

…rofile articles about the Federalist Society and legal conservatism in the New Yorker, the Washington Post and Politico make no mention of natural law. Among scholars, Pomona College professor Amanda Hollis-Brusky has published well-regarded studies of the Federalist Society and of Christian conservative legal organizations. But particularly in her book on the Federalist Society, Hollis-Brusky misses out on a major part of the story. While “origin…

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Atheist Nazis? The Pope’s Cheap Atonement

…n German Church Life,” financed by the Protestant church. They published a new version of the New Testament, purged of positive references to Jews and Judaism, redefined Jesus as an Aryan Galilean, and downplayed the role of the Jewish apostle Paul. In addition to their New Testament they distributed a dejudaized hymnal and catechism to churches throughout the Nazi Reich. Grundmann argued that Jesus’ intimacy with God established a morality that w…

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Glenn Beck’s Cheap Grace

…to buy into the vision of Glenn Beck and others who make it easy to turn away from the hard work of repentance, who tickle our ears with promises of cheap grace, and offer a vision of the cross of Jesus that has nothing to say to the crosses, and lynching trees, of history. But, if we do, we will be settling for the gospel of Caesar, not the good news of Jesus Christ. Perhaps it is time to put down the chalk, stop drawing pyrotechnical conspiracy…

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Mile-High Identity Politics: What We Can Learn From the Same-Sex Seating Controversy

A recent New York Times story on the tension caused when Orthodox Jewish men request same-sex seating on airlines for religious reasons generated over 3,000 reader responses. The scenario as described in the story generally unfolds something like this: the individual reaches his assigned seat and finds that the seat next to him is occupied by a woman. He shifts uncomfortably in the aisle until the flight attendant or an alert passenger recognizes…

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Put Your Money Where Your Mind Is: A For-Profit Meditation Studio Opens in New York

…e romance with Eastern spirituality,” Michelle Goldberg wrote last year on newyorker.com. “For well over a century,” she continued, “business-minded Americans have been transforming Hindu and Buddhist contemplative practices into an unlikely prosperity gospel.” Prosperity gospels and contemporary mindfulness practice share a profound belief in the power of the mind. Redirect your faith, prosperity gospel preachers claim, and you will be rewarded w…

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The Faith that Faith Produced

…y airline companion and give him this book, to surprise him, too—in a good way. (I would accept Lakers tickets in lieu of apologies, but I think that particular era is done.) This whole book is a result of a profound evolution, and needs to be seen as such. American Muslims have gone through a lot over the last few decades. We were never the caricature Islamophobes made us out to be (our earliest heroes include Muhammad Ali, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, a…

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A Meditation on Shopping and Desire

…goods and advertisements that tell us our life is not enough without that new phone, that new gadget, that new dress. And yet the minute you purchase your phone or laptop, it is obsolete. Every six months, fashion editors tell us our entire closet is out—our clothing is disposable. Shopping is not only a lifestyle, it is a form of entertainment. Whether it is infomercials and shopping networks or makeover shows, we not only shop, we watch people…

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