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How Postwar Germany’s Witchcraft Trials Can Help Us Understand QAnon And Other Conspiracy Theories

By Monica Black

…aft accusations did not involve carnal relations with the Devil, nocturnal flight, or being able to fall down stairs without sustaining injury. Though they imputed magical evildoing, the accusations mostly involved more mundane human problems, like suspicion, resentment, and festering doubt. This characteristic aligns with what anthropologists and historians who work on comparative witchcraft have made clear: that while witch fears can take quite…

Will the Taliban Actually Remain Somewhat Moderate This Time?

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…freedom-loving urban constituency. Throughout Afghanistan people have cell phones and access to the internet. It’ll be difficult to have the same kind of social control two decades later. Another factor is the way the Taliban came to power in recent months. In February 2020, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo represented President Donald Trump in meetings with Taliban representatives in Qatar. Trump essentially surrendered to the Taliban in excha…

Pope Benedict’s 2006 Islamophobia Controversy Wasn’t an Isolated Incident — Islamophobia is an Integral Part of His Theological Legacy

By Wendy Mallette

…ticulturalism” that’s led to a “pathological” form of “self-hatred” and “a flight from one’s own heritage.” Throughout Benedict’s narrative, from the Holy Roman Empire through the Crusades and contemporary Europe, Islam represents Europe’s threatening, external other. Benedict’s account of European history, as Columbia University’s Joseph A. Massad writes, “recode[s] European forms of despotism as democracy”—for example, portraying the Crusades as…

‘Hell is a World Without You’ Shows Readers How Squarely They Would Have Been on Path to Jan 6 if They’d Come of Age in Evangelicalism

By Michael J. Altman

…vel resonates with much of the current discourse of American religion. The flight of millennial and Zoomer exvangelicals out of churches, the embattled politics of American Christian nationalism, and evangelical attacks on LGBTQ+ rights provide a backdrop for this coming of age story. RD spoke recently with Kirk, a senior editor at The Athletic and co-creator of several popular podcasts, about the book, Christian Nationalism, Hell, and what it mea…

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…

My Congregation Tried to Help a Syrian Family Settle in the US

By Thomas Warming

…It does make me wonder, though, what would happen if this family got their flight waivers tomorrow and showed up next week. Would they be redirected to Connecticut like the family turned away from Indiana this week? Would they face open hostility, suspicion, even violence, as Muslims in many states have? Would my parishioners still want to befriend them, or would they be cowed or converted by the mean-spirited rhetoric that has been flying loose r…

Promise Keepers 2.0: Women and Jews Invited

By J. Terry Todd

…, the narrator declared, “The Jewish people are coming to Christ in record numbers.” The goal of some Christian Zionist and Messianic Jewish groups is the repatriation of all Jews to Israel, and the conversion of all Jews to Christ. Saturday afternoon’s sermons reflected those hopes. The Jewish humor of David Chernoff, one of the Messianic movement’s most prominent rabbis, fell flat when he addressed the crowd. The mostly gentile audience just did…

Updated with Audio: Secular Good, Muslim Bad: Unveiling Tunisia’s Revolution

By Haroon Moghul

…in the month of protests, the demonstration on Friday also included large numbers of women — almost none wearing veils — and many snapping cellphone pictures of the crowd to post on the Internet. If, instead, it had been veiled women calling for democracy, would their protests have been any less meaningful? If so, we’d probably make this calculation: If their governments had stifled their society, that’s the fair trade we make to keep the bearded…

Are Evangelicals Suffering From Buyer’s Remorse with Obama?

By Bill Berkowitz

…Media and Democracy, pointed out that Blackwater Airships is now Guardian Flight Systems, Blackwater Target Systems is GSD Manufacturing, and Blackwater Lodge and Training Center is the US Training Center. In addition, “The company also shed its bear-paw and crosshairs logo, for a stylized rendering of the name ‘Xe.’” Unlike the more famous Prince, as far as we know, Eric Prince is still going by the name Eric Prince. According to the Los Angeles…

Is The Episcopal Church Driving Drunk?

By J. Terry Todd

…high $2.5 million, noting Cook’s “indifference to life” and calling her a flight risk. A few days later, a defrocked priest, described as Cook’s “steady companion,” stepped forward with the cash and promissory note to free Cook. In the days since, the Bishop reportedly has returned to rehab on the shores of Chesapeake Bay, where she stayed in the days before she was booked. Cook is a suspended bishop now, and Episcopal Church officials have begun…