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What NOT to Expect from the Pope’s US Visit

By Anthea Butler

…xception. As is his custom, the Pope gave an interview to the press on the flight from Cuba to America. Cindy Wooden of Catholic News Service reported that, in response to questions about being a communist and Newsweek‘s “Is the Pope Catholic?” headline, he responded: “I am certain I have never said anything more than what is in the social doctrine of the church. I follow the church and in this, I do not think I am wrong.” That is key to understan…

Leaving Empire: The Risks of American Insularity

By Ryann Croken

…reating all the chaos. As I boarded my plane for Panama, with a connecting flight departing from, of all places, Houston’s Bush International Airport, visions of interesting frogs and secluded beaches began to recede in my mind as I became fixated on what seemed to be a disturbingly justified question about the citizens of the United States: Are we, um, stupid? When I arrived in Panama, I made my way over to Bocas del Toro, an insanely beautiful a…

RDBook: Apocalypse Without God

By Nathan Schneider

…he made his reputation with works on Kierkegaard and Hegel, and during the 1980s he helped to bring the ideas of Jacques Derrida into American theology and religious studies. Starting in the late 90s, though, Taylor ventured far afield with books on architecture, computer networks, economic markets, and even Las Vegas. In 2006, he released a book of photographs of animal skeletons in the desert. Taylor’s most recent book, After God, gathers these…

Pope Francis Walks With LGBTQ People, One Step Forward, Big Steps Back

By Kaya Oakes

…oft-quoted statement about gay priests—“Who am I to judge?”—occurred on a flight back to Italy from Brazil. Most recently in Tblisi, Georgia, the pope referred to the “theory of gender” as a “great enemy to marriage today.” He added that “there is a global war to destroy marriage,” and that the weapons being used are a form of “idealogical colonization.” In the past, Francis has used that phrase to describe Western ideas being forced onto develop…

Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Heretic: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Jihadis?

By Haroon Moghul

…ter 622, which is to say, per Hirsi Ali’s ‘Reformation,’ it never happened. 1.6 billion Muslims ditching Mecca in favor of Jerusalem would mean 1.6 billion Muslims who would then expect the right to arrive at the Temple Mount for worship, pilgrimage, study, and residence. Great idea! Far from Saudi Arabia holding a commanding position in the Muslim world, a new battle would open up between Fatah, Hamas, Iran, Turkey, and everyone else who claims t…

The Leadership Crisis at the End of the Megachurch Era

By Benjamin Dueholm

…l suggests that it was not to be. If there’s another chapter left in American Christianity, it will likely require an embrace rather than a flight from the absurdity of its words and practices….

Is Joel Osteen, Success Mag Cover Boy, Really “God’s Best”?

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…od’s best,” Osteen misses a very important point. Perhaps on his next long flight he can pull out his Bible and take a gander at Luke 16:19-31—the story of Lazarus and the rich man. Daily, the rich man ignored poor Lazarus, but when Lazarus died he was taken to “heaven” or a place of eternal comfort. The rich man’s fate in Hades was terrible, however, as he begged Abraham to “send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; f…

Barbara Ehrenreich’s Bright-Sided Explores the Dark Side of Positive Thinking

By Michelle Goldberg

…ow it encourages victim-blaming, political complacency, and a culture-wide flight from realism. “The flip side of positivity is… a harsh insistence on personal responsibility: if your business fails or your job is eliminated, it must be because you didn’t try hard enough, didn’t believe firmly enough in the inevitability of your success,” writes Ehrenreich. “As the economy has brought more layoffs and financial turbulence to the middle class, the…

The Sacred and the Dead: ‘Friend of the Devil’ is a Love Song

By Pitman B. Potter

…life in jail.” The theme of alienation is expressed in the song’s focus on flight—from the law, from society, even from friends. And yet we are drawn to identification with an outlaw so alienated from the rest of the world, he believes the Devil is his only friend. In my ministry as an Anglican deacon, leading ministries that offer food, clothing and, most important of all, fellowship to homeless folks living on the streets of Vancouver’s West Sid…

Everything Was Better When We Had God In Our Schools

By Hollis Phelps

…A 17-year-old student shot a boy in the Manual Training High School. • May 1, 1958, Massapequa, New York. A 15-year-old high school freshman was shot and killed by a classmate in a washroom of the Massapequa High School. • September 24, 1959, New York City, New York. Twenty-seven men and boys and an arsenal were seized in the Bronx last night as the police headed off a gang war resulting from the fatal shooting of a teenager Monday at Morris High…