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Diplomatic Suckerhood: Why Israel Is Fighting Toward its Own Demise

By Ira Chernus

…wish state began not merely because Jews felt victimized, but because so many felt powerless to do anything about it as long as they lived among the goyim (gentiles). What’s more, many early Zionists were ashamed of their weakness, seeing it as a sign that Jews were “abnormal.” They expected to escape all those feelings once they had their own independent nation, with its own armed forces. It doesn’t seem to have worked out that way. They have the…

An Unholy Holy Week: Is the All-Male Rule of the Roman Catholic Church Self-Destructing?

By Anne Eggebroten

…ing any report to civil authorities. Will Pope Benedict XVI set in motion any change to canon law? Will he step down or ask any complicit bishops to resign? Will he even order a Church-wide investigation? Unlikely. Instead, his moral authority will continue to erode. The number of priests will continue to dwindle. Catholic women will assume more and more administrative and other posts, and the hypocrisy of refusing to ordain them will become incre…

The Year of the Abusive Priest

By Anthea Butler

…thority. The Church will not be able to adequately insure its clergy with any reputable insurance agency against malpractice; educational institutions for youth will be stripped bare because of lawsuit payouts, and number of vocations, already low, will become even lower because of the stigma attached to being a priest. The test of Moral Credibility has been found wanting, and the handwriting is on the wall. Even the National Catholic Reporter’s e…

American Christianity Is Changing Fast: Five Stories to Watch in 2016

By Richard Flory

…s (seemingly) more open and welcoming take on Catholicism, his embrace of anybody who approaches him, and his frankly fearless presentation of a much more friendly Catholicism, has many Catholics hoping for a “Francis effect” that will draw Catholic church dropouts back, or even attract new converts. I have my doubts that a newly resurgent Catholic Church will result from the Pope’s influence. There is just too much institutional inertia in how th…

Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination with the Afterlife

By Lisa Miller

…sus Christ” will get to heaven. (I’m not alone here, by the way; a growing number of evangelical Christians agree with me.) At the same time, the most moving and culturally important visions of heaven are those created by the conservative believers. These are the visions that move people to action: to be faithful to One God, for example, or to martyr themselves. I would like to believe in heaven as a concrete reality in the future, a place that re…

Top Five (Less Sensational, But More Dangerous) Things to Remember About Pat Robertson (1930-2023)

By Mark Hulsether

…etoric of preparing for “civil war” or “Holy War,” the proportions aren’t any clearer. Sadly, even the least alarmist and most metaphorical reading remains deeply disturbing. Knowing what we do now about how easily Trump’s insurrectionists crossed the line to literal violence, the questions remain urgent. Rather than rework the earlier argument from the ground up, I bring it back here as originally published on January 21, 2010, with a few light e…

Haiti and the Push for Theological Questions

By Paula M. Cooey

…will temper us like the fires of steel, strengthening us in our faith. In any case, what is required of us in response is to submit to the will of God, however ambiguous, hidden, or unclear. While for some of us, God simply can’t sustain the weight of such protective measures, nor does God deserve such privileged treatment, for many of us the idea of challenging traditional conceptions of God is particularly unbearable in the face of suffering. Th…

A Debate Rages in India Over Conversion, Secularism, and “Spiritual Violence”

By Murali Balaji

…s social fabric incorporated Muslim and Christian norms, and ironically, many Hindu leaders embraced some of those norms in an attempt to re-interpret their religious scriptures from a modernist perspective. As a result, Hinduism itself became interpreted as more rigid and doctrinarian than its scriptural roots, and generations of Indians became Christianized (though not necessarily Christian) through India’s Christian parochial schools and a publ…

The 17th Century Roots of Roy Moore’s Refusal to Concede the Election

By Karen E. Park

…a clear violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment and any number of Supreme Court cases. He was removed again last year for refusing to uphold federal law on same sex marriage, on the grounds that it was in violation of God’s law as found in the Old Testament. Like Winthrop, Moore believes that the Old Testament should order American society, whether Exodus or Leviticus. The ancient Israelites in these societies either adhered,…

Sex and the Chosen People: Be Fruitful and Multiply, Etc.

By Mandy Van Deven

The Passionate Torah: Sex and Judaism Danya Ruttenberg, editor NYU Press, 2009 Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg has spent much of her career writing about Judaism. Her first book, Yentl’s Revenge (2001), is a collection that features young women writing about how they have reconciled their faith and their feminist beliefs, and explores topics like marriage, body image, transgender theory, and environmentalism in order to redefine Judaism for a younger gene…