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Talmud on Trial: Interfaith Dialogue in the 13th Century

By Michael Schulson

…out another religion is to study its texts 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 chu…

Confront Death by Avoiding Fritos: The Gluten Lie, Fad Diets, & Foodie Faith

By Michael Schulson

…and anxiety reminds me of the main character in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris who romanticizes 1920s Paris, until he actually travels there and discovers that Parisians of the ‘20s are fantasizing about the 1890s …and so on. We look to other times and other cultures for supposedly healthier, more authentic ways of eating. There’s this idea, and it makes a lot of intuitive sense, that if we’re suffering, and we don’t have solutions to our own pr…

‘No Room’ for Gays in Country that Worships God [Kenya] | Churches Fight to Keep Sexuality Out of Sex Ed [S. Korea] | Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…Peter Stephens, his partner of 32 years, (photo right) on the tarmac of a Paris airport for the arrival of Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, when a protocol officer told the ambassador that the prime minister should not be greeted by Mr. Stephens. Ambassador Brady was ordered to have his partner “wait in the car.” To his credit, Ambassador Brady refused to follow that order. Peter remained by his side as the Prime Minister and his delegation…

Talking Salsa with Douglas Hofstadter, Enigmatic Author of Gödel, Escher, Bach

By Eliot Raynor

…two hours. Hofstadter took up salsa five years ago while on sabbatical in Paris, a pursuit he explains in terms of simple admiration. Having envied those who could appear so cool and composed on the dance floor, while also totally virtuosic and precise in their movements, he decided to learn. This fascination with salsa feels continuous with his work in cognitive science. Hofstadter’s persistence is legendary; he’s preoccupied with discovering th…

Answering the Top 5 Questions About ISIS

By Haroon Moghul

…take seriously the idea they are extremists. In addition to killing large numbers of people, trying very hard to commit genocide, burning prisoners alive, and beheading innocent civilians, ISIS also uses rape as a tool of conquest, and slavery as a mechanism of control. All of this behavior is fundamentally in contradiction to core Islamic values and principles. In my longest piece on the topic, I discuss ISIS theology from the perspective of Isl…

RIP: Bishop Otis Charles and Rev. Robert Nugent

By Peter Montgomery

…School in Cambridge, Massachusettss. Egelko reports that Charles came out in 1993 shortly after announcing his retirement, divorced his wife of 42 years, and moved to San Francisco. He ran a gay ministry there and at age 76 he met Felipe Sanchez-Paris, who he later married. Sanchez-Paris died in July. Charles is survived by five children, ten grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. A memorial service is scheduled at 2 p.m. Jan. 11 at St. Gr…

Orlando Massacre and ISIS: The Illusion of Power

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…ISIS needs the illusion of power. There is no doubt that this is what the Paris and Brussels terrorist attacks were meant to achieve. ISIS has also encouraged individuals to conduct their own acts of jihad against disbelievers. Such acts would give the appearance of a global terrorist operation, even though the central ISIS command did little to plan or conduct them. Is this what happened in Orlando? Thus far, there is no evidence that Omar Matee…

The Higher the Dome, The Closer to God: “Megachurches” Explores the Arid Architecture of America’s New Sanctuaries

By Anita Little

…and is currently being exhibited at the Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac Pantin in Paris. When I entered the bustling coffeeshop in Highland Park, I found Auerbach in a dark hoodie holding a bike helmet, freshly out of teaching a class at Claremont and ordering a cortado. I sat with her and talked about art, America, and big box religion. ____________ Anita Little: So why megachurches? It seems to be a departure from your usual work in mixed media. Lisa A…

Our Lady of Good Hope and Excellent Behavior: Why this Apparition and Why Now?

By Lisa Bitel

…ion by joining other denominations or leaving Christianity altogether. The number of priests and nuns was at an all-time low even before the recent sexual scandals, and the number of self-identified Catholics world-wide keeps declining. Many of those who remain in the Church ignore standard doctrines and believe what they want. How many Catholics disobey Church rules? About as many as the angels dancing on a pinhead. Believers know that Jesus prom…

The Pope in My Pocket; We Are All Dilettantes Now

By Michael A. Elliott

…or sell for under two dollars). And unlike the internet, the space of the iPhone feels not just private, but personal. Yes, the iPhone might be my means of connection with the world—it is, after all, a phone—but it is also my own little password-locked garden that I carry with me wherever I go. Moreover, I can remake the landscape with a few flicks of my fingers whenever I choose. As a result, the territory necessarily mixes the sacred and the pro…