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Hookers for Jesus: Sex and Salvation on the Strip

By Nicole Greenfield

…that has come to define reality television. “Each time you do it, you want more. More of that rush, more of that crazy feeling.” Cue the music, cut to a close-up of a woman pulling on fishnets and fastening stilettos. “It’s suggestive.” She continues, fighting back tears and yelling: “It ain’t right. It’s not fair. It’s wrong. To sell sex with porn, and to get people addicted so that now guys have to act out their fantasy and call us. And then we…

NC’s Gay Marriage Ban: “It’s Going to Hurt the Church”

By Nicole Greenfield

…vote as much as we are,” he said. “It remains to be seen who’s going to be motivated and mobilized to get out there and do it.” As far as media coverage is concerned, Bakker laments that the same-old anti-gay Christian perspective is still the easy go-to. “It’s a strange phenomenon,” he told me: “I really do think that in the long run it’s going to hurt the church, and shrink the church in numbers. We’re supposed to be known for our love for one a…

Who’s to Blame for BP?

By David True

…another irony is that the Act of God theory would help one of the world’s most powerful corporate entities evade its responsibility—morally if not legally. To hide from the bright light of criticism behind the robes of God, if you will, is a cynical use of sacred language and beliefs. Moreover, it is deeply ironic in that we live in a technological age obsessed with control; indeed, it is hard to imagine a more controlling business than that of t…

How Not to Support Obamacare

By Peter Laarman

…a sense of the common good came from the Socialist who caucuses with the Democrats, Vermont’s Bernie Sanders: “I am a strong advocate of a Medicare-for-all single-payer program.” Yes, Obama should apologize for misleading purchasers of cheap policies by insisting that if they like their current coverage, they can keep it. He needs to take his licks on that. But the right answer is not to cave on the fundamental principle of shared risk. The right…

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…

Are American Christians “Persecuted”?

By Eric C. Miller

…t’s put that cheap argument to bed. At Patheos, Benjamin Corey shakes that cheap argument awake: Can we stop complaining about this bogus idea that American Christians are persecuted now? I mean, really. Can we stop? The world needs us to turn from ourselves and focus on this real persecution, because it’s evil and must be exposed and stopped. However, our own self-centeredness as Americans is getting in the way of the discussion on real anti-Chri…

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

By Peter Laarman

…e him credit: the man has balls to say this. Yes, fracking gives Americans more cheap carbon energy—for a while. And then we’re left with ruined landscapes, ruined aquifers, and our 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 p…

Modernity’s Fraternity: What Dan Brown Gets Right

By Samuel Biagetti

…. Although some American Masons undergo the Knights Templar initiation ceremony, most do not; it is part of a system of “higher degrees,” a later development that certain Masons added onto the society’s original structure. We may forgive Brown these inconsistencies, though, since he at least presents us with a real Masonic ceremony. Considering that Dan Brown’s last two books offer a paranoid conspiracy theorist’s tour of Catholicism, with secret…

“Reconciliation” With Indigenous People is Comforting For Many Canadians, But is a Christian Concept Up To The Task?

By Pamela Klassen and Joseph Wiebe

…ominently featured. Thankfully, however, the voices of Indigenous journalists and writers such as Connie Walker, Angela Sterritt, and Alicia Elliott are rising. Reconciliation may not be a concept robust enough to bring more just relations among treaty people into being, but it has played an important role in provoking public debate—both productive and malicious—that has brought a greater range of voices into the stories we hear….

The Economy is Racism: Ending Race-Based Economic Violence is the Real Challenge of This Moment

By Peter Laarman

…rs who no longer need to report to offices but whose output can be closely monitored remotely. And yes, investors understand that the pandemic will damage or entirely eliminate certain sectors. But that’s okay, too, as long as the Federal Reserve is standing by to provide unlimited long-term assistance to big capital even as the losers drop away. I say all this to make the point that the new normal—with pain and misery at the bottom and staggering…