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Does the Inquisition Explain the Modern World?

By Gordon Haber

…uisition, was a response to Catharism, a dualist heresy that flourished in southwest France at the turn of the 13th century. A bloody twenty-year crusade stamped out the overt practice of Catharism, though underground its embers continued to smolder. Thus in 1231, Pope Gregory IX created the role of inquisitor, a “detective, prosecutor, and judge rolled into one,” as Murphy puts it. Usually a Dominican friar, the inquisitor moved fast, traveling w…

A Tea Party Leader Hates Christians

By Sarah Posner

…put out the following statement from Bishop Minerva Carcaño of the Desert Southwest Conference: Though the Senate failed to supply the necessary leadership to provide humane and effective solutions to the badly broken immigration system, the DREAM Act students have shown themselves to be our leaders not only for tomorrow, but for today as well. These are students who desire nothing less than to serve their country – the only country many of them…

RDBook: Apocalypse Without God

By Nathan Schneider

…for water. The lack of awareness of this problem is astonishing to me. The Southwest is drying up. Not long ago Atlanta was six weeks away from having no water, the whole city. And it is a global problem. In many parts of the world, there is neither enough water nor sufficient drinkable water. Water is also being polluted by farming practices, which involve the use of fertilizers and pesticides on a massive scale that seep down into the ground wat…

Taking the Economy Back From the Elites: Blessed Are the Organized

By Nathan Schneider

…cade earlier. I don’t pretend to have done a full-scale ethnography of the Southwest IAF network. How could one do that in a summer and a winter? Rather, the book is an exercise in public philosophy. It is meant to resemble classic works of traveling theory like Tocqueville’s Democracy in America and Martineau’s Society in America. I wanted to bring the philosophy of democratic citizenship down to earth. How has your thinking evolved about your ea…

Romney Betrays Harold Bloom’s Fantasy Mormonism

By Joanna Brooks

…e aside from a short season of “wandering” (as he describes it) about “the Southwest from 1989 to 1991” he does not know it. And while it’s terrific to see opinion page coverage of Mormonism at the Times move beyond Maureen Dowd’s sneering recap of Bill Maher’s latest stand-up routine, it would also be terrific to see the nation’s paper of record solicit its Mormon content from some of the nation’s most knowledgeable interpreters of Mormon politic…

Dark Sisters Opera Aims to Humanize Sister Wives

By Joanna Brooks

…a focuses on the spiritual travails of a polygamous family in the American Southwest after their household has been raided by law enforcement. I spoke with Mr. Muhly last week to explore the production’s spiritual side. Joanna Brooks: Tell me about the genesis of the project. Nico Muhly: It began very abstractly. Basically, an opera commission comes up and it’s a big open question: what kind of stories make sense? I knew we would have space limita…

Bishop Minerva Carcaño Has a Nearly Impossible Job

By Mary E. Hunt

…of women across the country. She is now the very busy Bishop of the Desert Southwest Conference, which encompasses huge swaths of that region including southern Nevada, some California communities along the Colorado River, and Arizona. Relations with Mexico and immigration are major parts of her pastoral concern. A Rock Star on Immigration The Methodists have named her their official spokesperson for the Council of Bishops on immigration. As th…

Our Lady of Good Hope and Excellent Behavior: Why this Apparition and Why Now?

By Lisa Bitel

…jugorje; or massive immigrations over national borders, as in the American southwest, where Marian apparitions have flourished as Latino/a Catholics arrive in ever greater numbers. Journalists and television reporters, meanwhile, usually just poke fun at the latest Virgin on a Tree Stump or bleeding statue, without bothering to learn more about the long history of local Christian devotions and pilgrimage. Catholic bishops and parish priests usuall…

God at the Gay Pride Parade

By Peter Montgomery

…v. Dr. R. Guy Erwin, a professor of religion and history who will lead the Southwest California Synod. From GLAAD: Because he is openly gay and partnered, Dr. Erwin did not seek ordination in the ELCA when he was completing seminary. Instead, he completed a PhD in Lutheran history and spent most of his career as a teacher of Lutheran history. He met his partner Rob Flynn while he was studying for this PhD at Yale University. He and Rob are members…

RDBook: Wifely Submission and Christian Warfare

By Kathryn Joyce

…n Primm Springs, Tennessee, a point in a web of barely paved country roads southwest of Nashville lined by hay bales festooned with American flags and notices to “Vote Yes on 1 to Protect Marriage,” I met one of the grande dames of American Christian womanhood, Nancy Campbell, author of books such as Be Fruitful and Multiply and The Power of Motherhood, and the self-titled “editriss” of the internationally distributed Above Rubies magazine, a miss…