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

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…ination within this assembled fiscal brain trust. What—apart from printing more money and promising it to almost all at-risk mega-corporations—have they really proposed? It is in this sense that Main Streeters are actually left out; they do not seem to appear on the horizon of the imagined community of the economic elite, currently managing a crisis of their own creation. We have seen a new twist on this problem of late. Media outlets have begun t…

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…

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…

Death in the Desert: Riding With the Samaritans

By Lauri Lebo

…pushed the most desperate of these immigrants to take their chances on the more remote areas of the Arizona mountains and deserts. Which is why, Father David and Millsap believe, the number of deaths have climbed this past year. Many of the bodies are too decomposed or mutilated by animals to ever be identified. Kat Rodriguez of Coalicion de Derechos Humanos, a nonprofit advocacy organization which collects data on the deaths, says she gets calls…

Godly Game or Godless Satire? Countering Biblical Ignorance with Heretical Humor

By Betsy Shirley

…them, that’s when you laugh,” said Norris. “Laughter” doesn’t always mean “mockery,” she continued. More often, laughter is a way of “allowing those contradictions in” which can lead “to a deeper understanding.” She likened it to a relationship: “It’s like loving somebody because you think they’re perfect and wonderful and you don’t want to see any of their faults or loving them and knowing that they have those faults.” The creators of A Game for…

Wichita, the Sequel: A Clinic Reopens at Ground Zero in America’s Fight over Abortion

By Kathryn Joyce

…was caught after the murder, fleeing halfway across the state, he had the phone number of an Operation Rescue leader on his dashboard—the tip of the iceberg in terms of the broader connections he’d built with anti-abortion extremists. The church, Roeder would later testify, emerged as the only place he could find a shot at Tiller, around the elaborate security measures the doctor had learned to follow at his clinic and home. “Justifiable homicide…

A Muslim Reflects on Christian Theologian (and UCLA Coach) John Wooden

By Amir Hussain

…0s. I wrote to Coach Wooden as an undergraduate asking for a copy of his famous Pyramid of Success. About a month later I received an autographed copy, along with a nice note. That in turn led me to his textbook, Practical Modern Basketball, first published in 1966, which helped me to work on my game. I was the nerdy kid in high school, not becoming a jock until university. There, I developed and flourished as an athlete. To this day, one of the a…

Too Hot for Shul: Rabbis Seek Healthy Israel Dialogue After Gaza

By Sarah Posner

…adigm shift, though, a failure to talk about the range of disillusionment among American Jews could prove more damaging than difficult conversations. “Rabbis think they have to find the perfect, nuanced, balanced message that will speak to all of their politically diverse congregants and give them a model,” said JCPA’s Weintraub. But, she added, “Rabbis can exercise leadership by sending the message, wherever you stand, this is where you can come…

Why Crux‘s Knights of Columbus “Partnership” is Problematic

By Kaya Oakes

…calls for a “new concept of martyrdom.” The focus of the site seems to be moving more toward being about Pope Francis and anti-Christian terrorism abroad, and less about the American church and the laity. Where Crux will go from here is unknown, but its demise as a project of secular journalism about the church, and its move toward being supported, at least in part, by a Vatican-sponsored fraternal organization may not bode well. Allen is still o…

Why I Wrote the Freedom Seder And Why It’s Still Necessary 50 Years After Dr. King’s Assassination

By Arthur Waskow

…er, who had come from a Mississippi sharecropper’s shack to confront the Democratic Party: “Go tell it on the mountain, let my people go! … Must be the people that Moses led, let my people go!” The sermons I had heard Black preachers speak, half shouting, half chanting: “And on the wings of eagles I will bring you, from slavery, from bondage, yes!—from slavery, to be My people—yes, my beloved people.” Yes, on the streets is Pharaoh’s army, and I a…