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Modernity’s Fraternity: What Dan Brown Gets Right

By Samuel Biagetti

…s were encouraged to build confidence in their own intellects, and to form new commercial, religious, and educational institutions. The lodges also acted as little schools of government, training new, local elites in elections and legislative procedures. The influence of Masonry was part of the process that democratized and liberalized Europe and North America through a wave of revolutions. The Masonic faith laid the foundations for modern ideolog…

Celebrate Jesus with Weird Merchandise!

By Gwynne Watkins

…tween the bunnies-and-eggs version of Easter, and the church-service version. Merchandisers are wise to define Easter by marshmallow chicks and colorful baskets, rather than bring theology into it. But there are always exceptions. One is the Oriental Trading Company. Founded to create cheap plastic toys for carnivals, OTC is now a leading supplier of cheap plastic stuff for church groups and Christian schools. Their party supply catalog always con…

Memo to David Brooks: Francis Is Not Naïve For Criticizing Capitalism

By Peter Laarman

…same old dependence on foreign energy sources, having failed to turn to renewables while mindlessly pumping more cheap petroleum into our veins. Like other critics of the new encyclical, Brooks chalks up the pope’s hostility to capitalism as the product of naivete or perhaps of churchly antimodernism. What he fails to consider is that the Catholic Church, along with the wider Christian tradition going back to Jesus himself, have never been at eas…

Updated: My Work on Confederate Monuments Leaves This Christian Ethicist Distrustful of Calls for Reconciliation and Healing

By Ryan Andrew Newson

…overt lack of fighting with “peace” or “healing,” thus paving the way for new forms of violence to emerge in that very moment, born of the same demonic, white supremacist logic. And insofar as contemporary calls for healing trade in a similar “move on” mentality—that refuse to really face what has happened over these past four years or how we got here—they echo some of the same moves that gave rise to the majority of public Confederate monuments….

Wall St., Main St., Religion, and the Bailout

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…ative,” he smiled. “They never went in for those bundles they bought up in New York.” Apparently there was still capital flowing in the streets and shops of Quitman. Some people even feel comfortable retiring. It turned out that many of the boarded Main Street facades here were signs of remodeling, not foreclosures. It actually began to seem as if economic spirits were relatively high. But that was only one store, the only one that was open—for no…

Hookers for Jesus: Sex and Salvation on the Strip

By Nicole Greenfield

…us have drawn their share of criticism. “Some Christians think we are just cheap harlots and tell us so,” she says. “But to be honest, we really don’t care.” Even the television show, which begins with a warning about its potentially disturbing content, seems to favor sex over religion, the hookers over Jesus. “The parts that you will see is what [Investigation Discovery] chose to portray,” Lobért explained to The Christian Post: “There are a lot…

Churches Can No Longer Hide the Truth: Daniel Dennett on the New Transparency

By Andrew Aghapour

…issue for Muslim children. Are they going to let their children have cell phones and be on the Internet? If they forbid them, that’s going to be very tough, and if they permit them, they’re going to introduce a huge new force into the world of child rearing and education. Religious education is going to have to make some drastic shifts. And it’ll be interesting to see how it works. This is still hinged on belief. This next generation can be Musli…

Death in the Desert: Riding With the Samaritans

By Lauri Lebo

…grants from their homes. They are pulled to the U.S. because of demand for cheap labor. One of the major pushes came in the ’90s with the passage of NAFTA, which opened the door to many agri-businesses to move farms down to Mexico, putting small farmers out of business. And while the number of undocumented border crossers is down, Brother David says, it will be virtually impossible to eliminate them as long as the opportunities for jobs exist. As…

Reverend Billy For Mayor: Is He For Real?

By Nathan Schneider

…referring to Bloomberg’s successful campaign to extend the term limit of a New York City politician from two to three 4-year terms.) But for some who have long supported Reverend Billy’s exorcisms of Starbucks cash registers and revival meetings in Wal-Mart parking lots, running for mayor is going too far. “I’ve been really disappointed in how narrow people’s picture of what politicians are,” says Savitri Durkee, producer of the Church of Life Aft…

Vatican Considers ‘Disordered’ Language; HBO Doc on LGBT Persecution in Russia; Nigerian Bishop Shifts on Anti-Gay Law; Arson at ‘Open Mosque’ in South Africa; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ylum because of his “non-traditional sexual orientation.” On Saturday, the New York Times reported that the fact that the boy “chose not to return home and sought asylum on the basis of his sexual orientation” had been confirmed by an “American official, who was not authorized to comment on the case and so spoke on the condition of anonymity.” Susan Reed, an attorney for the teen, disputed the Russian government’s claims, saying, “He is in federal…