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Did Pope Francis Just End the Religion and Science Conflict?

By Donovan Schaefer

…focus on their common problems. Winning theological fights may not be the best use of time and resources when the health of the planet is on the line. This shift may never happen. The shadow of the ongoing debates about Darwinism—especially among American Protestants—may be too long and too dark to challenge popular acceptance of the Conflict Thesis anytime soon. It would also require an enhanced commitment on the part of the Catholic Church itse…

Is Bill Barr’s Belief in a Powerful President Actually Religious? A ‘High Papal’ Fable

By Ivan Strenski

…Holland also claims seven novels to his name, several TV documentaries, a number of radio broadcasts, a play or two, and a translation of Herodotus’s Histories, all the while holding down a staff position with The Guardian. Taken as a whole, Holland’s entire oeuvre seems a colossal myth-making enterprise geared to reintroducing the West to its own formation. Taken in itself, Dominion often maddeningly, sometimes entertainingly, rambles through tw…

New Report Mapping Christian Nationalism by State Suggests Election Need Not be Played Out on Christian Nationalist Terms

By Daniel Schultz

…olina, and Wisconsin? They’re all right around the national average. Those numbers are not destiny, however. Conservative Utah has low levels of agreement with Christian nationalism, at just 28%. Meanwhile its solidly Democratic neighbor New Mexico is a bit higher, at 32%. Still, the results are significant for understanding the political scene today. Christian nationalism should not be ignored or downplayed, but at the same time the segment of th…

Talmud on Trial: Interfaith Dialogue in the 13th Century

By Michael Schulson

…and its official positions. The Paris trial challenges both. Perhaps it’s best to encounter religions in the real world, informally, with a focus on actual actions, not official words. Pope Benedict XVI worked hard to improve the Church’s interfaith profile, with limited success. While his largely positive attitude toward other religions could not have been more different from that of the 13th century church, Benedict’s basic approach was the sam…

It’s the Water! And Other Lowlights from Presidential Science Debate

By Michael Schulson

…change,’” the Trump campaign wrote. Then things got weirder. “Perhaps the best use of our limited financial resources should be in dealing with making sure that every person in the world has clean water,” Trump continued, talking about something that has little to do with climate change. “Perhaps we should focus on eliminating lingering diseases around the world like malaria. Perhaps we should focus on efforts to increase food production to keep…

The Roots of the American Right’s Muslim Brotherhood Panic

By Sarah Posner

…d all that: The Muslim Brotherhood, widely acknowledged as the largest and best organized opposition force in the country, abstained from the January 25 demonstrations, but belatedly endorsed the January 28 demonstrations. Perhaps as a result of this waffling there has been almost no Islamic content to the demonstrations. The tone has mostly been nationalist and secular. But that reality gets in the way of some good propaganda for the American rig…

Pelosi Attacker’s New Age Spirituality and Belief in QAnon is no Contradiction

By Susannah Crockford

…nudity activist, about her upcoming wedding (at which DePape was to be the best man). In that article, it states that DePape made hemp jewelry for a living. Associating with nudity activists, particularly Taub, seems to locate DePape in San Francisco hippie culture. Taub is a self-described rebel, Deadhead, and homeschool mom with a school bus who met her husband Jaymz Smith at a Rainbow Gathering and saw him as the reincarnation of her previous h…

Wiccan Prayer in Iowa House Highlights Religious Freedom Problem

By Joseph Laycock

…tes, “We need to understand religious people as they are—not just at their best but also their worst. We need to look at not only their awe-inspiring architecture and gentle mystics but also their bigots and suicide bombers.” This is where pluralism gets tough. For Taylor and like-minded Christians, opposition to Maynard’s religion, and a refusal to engage with it on its own terms, is a religious commitment. Taylor explained: I prayed about this a…

The Hyperreal Kimmy Schmidt

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…dreds of years old.) Does his optimism, cheerfulness, and desire to do his best belong to a lost past as well—along with Kimmy’s cassette tapes, the 90s, Indiana, Georgia, scrunchies, and preachers named Gary? In The Future of Nostalgia Svetlana Boym discusses the remarkable etymology of the word “nostalgia.” It looks like it might be an ancient Greek concept, since the root words are Greek: nostos, meaning “return home;” and algos, or “longing.”…

My Childhood Hobby Was Satanic, Or So They Told Me

By Joseph Laycock

…re beset at every turn by demonic forces and evil conspiracies. Despite my best intentions, some people may find these ideas offensive and feel that either their religion or their hobby has been slighted. But I think most readers will find this book interesting and thought provoking. What alternative title would you give the book? For a while my working title was “What The Moral Panic Over Role-Playing Games Says About Religion and Other Imagined…