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Halloween, Evangelicals, and the Macabre

By John W. Morehead

…that comes from paganism must be evil is ignored; as is that fact that Halloween incorporates a number of elements and influences that have accrued during its journey through various cultures. In truth, some of these elements are Christian, like the feast of the dead that attempted to maintain communion with the saints, both living and deceased. The Roman Catholic Church continues to include this element in its festivities, and thus, as historian…

We Were Here Before September 11th

By Amina Wadud

…rorism. But I am not selective. I do not just condemn terrorism done by fellow Muslims; I condemn terrorism done against fellow Muslim—whether as a civil act of disobedience, or as a collective act of a powerful government. And because my condemnation of terrorism sits right there beside my condemnation of violence, oppression and coercion, it was not born out of September 11th. I condemned violence, terrorism, oppression, weapons, and war long fr…

The American Media’s Longterm Ambivalence About the Papacy

By Peter Manseau

…mage forecasts that Life’s Catholic coverage would differ from Time’s in a number of ways. First and most obviously, it depicts a woman; second and perhaps less so, it depicts work. The lives of Catholics, the picture says, do not require the stillness or the clerical luxury depicted in many of Time’s cover images of prelates and popes. Life’s cover images of lived-religion would continue with the then-famous Dionne sisters (the first known quintu…

Americans Say Religion is “Losing Influence”

By Diane Winston

…f traditional institutions. But during the Reagan years, and especially following 9/11, the significance of religion—its association with social stability, community cohesion, and traditional values—raised appreciation for its influence. The upshot? The perception of increased religious influence on American society is just a cataclysm away. Religion’s saliency for political machinations, cultural inspiration, and social movements is a separate re…

This Year in Satanism

By Joseph Laycock

…42. Meanwhile 1600 Catholics descended on Oklahoma City to protest. The following morning, Archbishop Coakley performed an exorcism at the Civic Center to dispel any evil conjured by Daniels’s ritual. OCTOBER In October a man drove his car into the Oklahoma Ten Commandments monument, smashing it to rubble. The individual turned out to be a mentally disturbed Christian who blamed the devil for his actions. The Satanic Temple released a statement co…

Special Hell: Progressive Catholics Reckon With the Rise of Trump

By Patricia Miller

…ly interpreted, Exodus was saying that human social organization teeters between the Egyptian pyramidal model of one percent rule and the alternative Sinai model based on appropriate sharing where ‘there will be no poor among you’ (Deut. 15:4) and where swords will gradually be beaten into plowshares. We have, says Maguire, been living in a plowshares moment since the end of the Second World War, a “brief moral interlude,” when “there was sharing…

More Than Big Hair and Money: Jim, Tammy Faye and the Media “Holy Wars” of the 80s

By John Wigger

…ce did an episode on a merry-go-round. One cast member threw up in the dog costume he was wearing as they spun round and round, all on live television. At the time it all seemed fresh and, for many, exciting. The sex and financial shenanigans were only interesting because of the size of PTL’s cultural footprint. Did you have a specific audience in mind when writing? I have written dense academic works, but this is aimed at a broader audience. It’s…

Holy Father, You’re Not Helping: The Problem with the Pope’s Plan to Consecrate Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary

By Katherine Kelaidis

…hief among them contention over the pope’s claim to universal authority. A number of violent incidents over two hundred years, from both sides of Christianity’s two halves, helped solidify the separation. These included the Byzantine massacre of Catholics living in Constantinople in 1182, the sacking of Thessaloniki by Catholics in 1185, and their pillage of Constantinople in 1204. Finally, the establishment of Rome-allied episcopacies in traditio…

Glenn Beck’s Salvation Army

By Peter Montgomery

…for those preachers, he says, America today would be more like France, following the European model of “collective rights, collective issues, collective everything.” In the Tea Party era, ‘collective’ is a four-letter word. Beck and Barton don’t even like the terms “human rights” or “social justice” because they see them as collectivist. In a televised conversation in April, Barton dismissed social justice, saying “That’s collective rights. Jesus…

New Reports Reveal Global Persecution of Nonbelievers

By Austin Dacey

…o “blasphemous content.” The IHEU reports being contacted by an increasing number of secularist groups organizing on Facebook, including groups in Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Malaysia, Pakistan, Tunisia, Turkey, and Sudan. In all of this, the United States is an anomaly since it rejects even laws against religious hate speech, which were found in 36 of 45 European states in 2011. It’s the best place in the wo…