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Everything You Think You Know About the Dark Ages is Wrong

By Nancy Marie Brown

…now sound. Less than a hundred years later, a pope would launch the first Crusade, and The Scientist Pope would be branded a sorcerer and devil-worshipper for having taught the science that had come into Christian Europe from Islamic Spain. What’s the most important take-home message for readers? The popular picture of the Dark Ages is wrong. The earth wasn’t flat. People weren’t terrified that the world would end at midnight on December 31, 999….

Prominent Russian Orthodox Church Rejects Pro-Putin Patriarch Kirill, Raising Tensions Within Orthodox World

By Katherine Kelaidis

…me allied with the Russian state which has, in turn, deployed it as an instrument of Russian soft power around the world. Particularly under the circumstances, we would be remiss to forget that one of the reasons the Ukrainian government petitioned the Ecumenical Patriarch with such diligence for an independent Ukrainian church is because of suspicions that Moscow Patriarchate churches were being used by the Russian state for espionage. Furthermor…

Burning Down the Temple: Religion and Irony in Black Rock City

By Sarah M. Pike

…an into a consumer event could add this sale to a long list of complaints: rules and more rules, opaque finances, increasing law enforcement presence, and more “spectators” in RV comfort palaces running noisy generators. Burners are a suspicious lot and many of them believe the Borg has caved in to the very values of corporate America that it seeks to challenge. Before entering the city I was reminded about why there is so much criticism of the or…

Pittsburgh Paradox: A City Haunted by God and Steel

By Ed Simon

…the mountainside evoking the ancient dwellings on the slopes in western Jerusalem, or the seven eternal hills of Rome. In my book, I ascribe some of that charged energy to Pittsburgh’s unique “spirit of place,” the sense that its geography has not just tangible material ramifications, but a more numinous significance as well. Scholar Chiara Letizia writes about the significance of river confluences in many of the world’s faith traditions, explain…

Party of Religious Liberty Botches Debate on Religion and the Constitution

By Sarah Posner

…urveilling mosques, botching First Amendment 101 in the process. In former New York Governor George Pataki’s case, he botched the facts, too: he claimed that the New York Police Department had a “very active group, aggressively monitoring” Muslim communities, which “stopped and prevented dozens, and dozens of attacks in New York.” But the NYPD itself has admitted the program, since disbanded, produced no terrorism leads. “I’m a great believer in t…

The Devil in Dover

By Lauri Lebo

…am working on a book now about another case I covered while a reporter in York. In 1969, two people were killed during York’s race riots; a black preacher’s daughter and a white rookie cop. For 30 years, no one was ever arrested, even though there were estimated to be 100 witnesses in both shootings. In 2000, I was part of an investigative team at The York Dispatch. Our reporting on the crimes spurred a witness coming forward and led to the Distr…

Bishops Reject Proposed Compromise with Obama on Contraception Coverage

By Sarah Posner

…ghborhood Partnerships. She described the Hawaii law, and a similar one in New York, as allowing religious employers that refuse to cover contraceptives to “provide written notification to enrollees disclosing that fact and describing alternate ways for enrollees to access coverage for contraceptive services.” However, Rogers also noted that “these state laws are far from perfect. Further, we need more information about how they have worked in pra…

Cardinal Dolan Softens Pope’s Anti-Capitalism Rhetoric

By Patricia Miller

…e has noticeably dialed it down these days, reports Sharon Otterman in the New York Times. Nowhere is this more evident than when Dolan talks about same-sex marriage. Where in 2011 Dolan charged that efforts to recognize same-sex marriage were part of a “drive to neuter religion” being pushed by “well-financed, well-oiled sectors” of society, late last year on “Meet the Press” he simply asserted that the hierarchy had been “outmarketed” on the iss…

Transgender and Christian: Finding Identity

By Jori Lewis

…lical story of the Ethiopian eunuch who Philip converts on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza. In the Old Testament there is a prohibition against eunuchs entering places of worship. But Philip baptizes the eunuch, showing him that the religion of Jesus is more inclusive of outcasts. Toscano’s narrator, recounting the meeting, says that baptism is “a sign to show we died to our old lives, and we are free to live more as ourselves.” Toscano said he st…

Evangelicals ‘Crossing the Tiber’ to Catholicism

By Jonathan D. Fitzgerald

…unlikely setting, The King’s College, an evangelical Christian college in New York City, provides an excellent case study for the way this phenomenon is manifesting itself among young evangelicals. The King’s College campus is comprised of two floors in the Empire State Building and some office space in a neighboring building on Fifth Avenue. The approximately 300 students who attend King’s are thoughtful, considerate and serious. They are also i…