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Does War Make Sense? Science and Religion on the Battlefield

By Nathan Schneider

…Arch-bureaucrat Robert McNamara, who served as secretary of defense between 1961 and 1968, was perhaps more responsible than anyone for making “systems analysis” into the Pentagon credo. “Don’t give me your poetry,” he once retorted to a White House aide’s dour assessment of the war in Vietnam. “Give me something I can put in the computer.” But cybernetics didn’t do much good in a war where there was no clear line between enemy and friend. During…

Blankets, Booties, and Jesus: Spiritual War on the Uterus in Rick Perry’s Texas

By Sarah Posner

…uttmacher Institute. Thirty-five percent of Texas women between the ages of 15 and 44 are uninsured, 13% higher than the national rate. Texas also has a higher rate of teen pregnancy than the national average, 88 pregnancies per 1,000 teen women, compared with 70 per 1,000 nationally. Yet in the face of this, the Texas legislature slashed family planning funding by two-thirds in 2011. The Republican-led legislature allocated another $8.4 million o…

Meeting on the Bridge: Fr. James Martin’s Ministry to LGBT Catholics Becomes a Book

By Kaya Oakes

…l associates have in parishes. For example, some people who come to me for spiritual direction might be LGBT. Some people who seek me out after Mass, or on a retreat, or after a talk, might be LGBT. Some people who contact me through social media might be LGBT. It’s grown since I started to write more online and in America magazine and be quoted about these issues. People may feel more comfortable knowing I’ll be more welcoming. In the process, I’…

“The Gift of Gay”: Father Matthew Kelty, Confessor to Thomas Merton, Dies at 96

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…62. In a curious, if poetic, turnabout Father Louis was assigned to be the spiritual director of the new initiates in 1960, so he had a direct hand in Father Matthew’s eventual embrace of the strictures of the Abbey. It’s ironic, this criss-crossed aspect to their monastic lives: Louis coming early, Matthew coming late; Louis leaving early, Matthew staying long. People always leaving just as other folks arrive. What Father Matthew recalls of his e…

What a Forgotten 19th Century Suffragist Can Teach Us About Women’s Rights vs. The Religious Right

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…ments came in the form of a letter he wrote to the New York Mail & Express, 19 April, 1890, and reprinted in the American Sentinel in July of that year. The Sentinel was an Adventist publication, and while they too wanted to see the coming Day of the Lord, they were against the political work of constitutional amendments, calling out Blair’s “spirit of religious despotism and intolerance” and saying he and his cohorts worked with “mediaeval method…

Omar Ahmad: Muslim, American, Cowboy Boot Aficionado (1965–2011)

By Wajahat Ali

…dialog that we will get to know each other!” He leveraged his good-natured spirit in politics, and was elected to the city council of San Carlos, and from there, to the mayor’s office. In that position, he did what every American mayor does, he fought with the Firemen’s Union. In all his activities, he remained committed to his faith. He helped nurture and train Muslim-American leadership. He was a behind-the-scenes mover, who used his vast entrep…

Art(ful) History in Texas

By Lauri Lebo

…w standards. Additionally, congressional redistricting will mean the entire 15-member board is up for election in 2012. Quinn said there’s a good chance that a fed-up public may replace conservative incumbents with a more moderate board. However, he fears that control of the board could swing back and forth between conservatives and moderates in elections every four years, much as it did in Kansas during its educational battles over evolution. “I’…

How Does an Atheist Come to Believe in God?: An Interview with Jacob Needleman

By Lisa Webster

…t made me wish to serve something. So I was an atheist, but I recall it as spiritual—a spiritual atheism. How did your ideas about religion change? Well, as I say, in my life it was more or less thrust upon me. I needed a job. It was 1962—ancient times—I was hired at San Francisco State and I was obliged to teach a course called the History of Western Religious Thought. For me I had no desire to teach anything like that. I was totally allergic to…

Lying About Our Religion, And Other Problems With Polling

By Michael Schulson

…rn between 1982 and 2000 would be one single unit, the millennials? Why not 1992-2010, or 1985-2005, or some other range? The term gets thrown around so much, and by such reputable institutions, that you can forget that it was invented in 1991 by a pair of marketing consultants, whose methods were, at best, sketchy. The persistence of these categories shouldn’t surprise anyone. Generalizations are appealing. They make good copy for journalists. “P…

The Problem with Pew’s Science & Religion Poll

By Andrew Aghapour and Michael Schulson

…reflect any longstanding, steadfast belief. “Polls are hastily done by telephone rather than in person,” Princeton sociologist Robert Wuthnow said in a recent interview with The Cubit. “If you’re a respondent in a poll, you’re being asked anywhere from four to five complex questions every minute. They’re throwing questions at you so rapidly that you often have no idea whether you really gave the right answer that you really believe or not.” Since…