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Is Monsanto Satan? The Pleasure and Problem of Conspiracy Theory

By Alan Levinovitz

…ns of culinary culture led me to write various articles and a book. The accusations began almost immediately. Again and again, online commenters accused me of being paid by Big Food to spread propaganda. And while Big Food consists of quite a few multinational corporations, commenters most often blamed my corruption on Monsanto, the agricultural biotechnology giant. Monsanto’s legendary depravity goes back for decades—they made Agent Orange for th…

The Moral Bankruptcy of Silicon Valley Asceticism

By Vlad Chituc

…utlets describe as anything between “flavorless custard” to “like someone wrung out a dishtowel into a glass.” The central ideas behind Soylent are efficiency and optimization. On “The Colbert Report,” Rhinehart stiffly discussed nutritional biochemistry and explained how Soylent “fit[s] the criteria that people desire in their staple foods.” This attitude isn’t too far from the kind of decluttering ethic that Marie Kondo would recognize. To expla…

What to Wear When Praying with the Pope

By Donna Schaper

…never thought I would hear a congressional standing ovation for the golden rule and now I have. One of the members of my women’s group, called the Sirens, kept her 11-year-old son home from school so he could hear the Pope. This pre-teen said “he sounds real.” He has a soothing voice. He says hard things with quietness appropriate to their difficulty. Somehow it can’t be accidental that the Harvest Moon rises this weekend, or that Eid-al-Adha, the…

Feminist Critics of Wearing Hijab in Solidarity Fall Into Same Old Traps

By Mariam Durrani

…re conservative and often sexist ideologies and policies across the Muslim world, I’m hesitant to rope the hijab into this socio-political and economic constellation of issues. The arc of their argument goes something like this: non-Muslim Americans should not show solidarity with Muslims by wearing the hijab since the hijab is a painful reminder of Islamist, extremist religious campaigns and supports a religious ideology of women as subordinate t…

Can Faith-Based Organizing for Gun Control Work?

By Sarah Posner

…es to buying a gun. The bus would have pamphlets—not anything silly and untrue like pamphlets that claim abortion causes breast cancer or that birth control pills are actually ineffective at preventing abortion—but pamphlets that detail the number of gun deaths in America, the number of mass shootings, the number of accidents, the number of suicides. The movement would have more than these grassroots activists. It would have willing politicians, a…

End-Times Watcher Sees Satan in an Energy Drink

By William R. Black

…tical labels are probably beyond the point. What is the point is that this world is ruled by a satanic conspiracy. Though she would certainly not phrase it this way, Satan is Christine Weick’s god. He is the prime mover of her universe. Weick searches through the flotsam of our postmodern consumerist world for signs of his presence. It is comforting, even pleasurable, to find signs. We love realizing there is an arrow hidden in the FedEx logo, or…

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Blames Gays For ISIS; ‘Christian Nationalist’ Sworn In As Guatemala’s President; Vatican Resists Civil Unions in Italy; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ange Gender In a decision released last week, an appeals court judge in Beiruit ruled that a transgender man can legally change his gender. Iran: Activists Say Govt Evades Questions About LGBT Human Rights The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child questioned the Iranian government about the human rights of LGBTI children and about coercive practices children are subjected to in order to “cure” their “illness.” LGBT advocacy organization 6rang re…

The Bindi Isn’t Indie

By Yesenia Vargas

…think of it as an accessory?” “I think of it the way Christians wear the crucifix. So…a reminder of what you believe in. Or a guide, really. For me, it’s this inner peace, like you’re very aware of yourself, very accepting. I don’t really do religion but meditation has changed my life. And this helps me remember that.” Someone like Kat, drawn to the bindi for their own reasons—sometimes spiritual, sometimes not—might not think of their choice of…

I’m Too Sexy for My Church: Will a Thriving Singles Scene Renew American Catholicism?

By Megan Sweas

…if young adult ministry is all about meeting Mr. or Mrs. Right, the church runs the risk of losing couples as soon as they pair off. Four months into their marriage, Mike Steinberger and his wife are still involved in the group because they’ve benefit from it not only as a couple, but as individuals. Like many others, Steinberger had been away from the church and came to St. Monica looking for a “community that nurtured my faith.” He had been invo…

How Mega-Macho-Pastor Mark Driscoll Helps Explain Trump’s Evangelical Support

By Jessica Johnson

…usly passed along via the rally cries, raised fists and laughing faces at Trump campaign events. Best to consider Trump and Driscoll’s seemingly paradoxical ascendance in popularity among U.S. evangelicals not as anomaly but as trend—one that signals the tenuousness of ideology or theology as moral guides. When the successful branding of authenticity is achieved by performing shamelessness, such that overt affective responses do not register as fe…