Religion Dispatches
…ridicule. They were suspected of being un-American, loyal to the Pope, incapable of liberty. At times Catholics were prevented from holding public office. In the mid-nineteenth century, while the number of Catholic hospitals was growing, the Know Nothing party organized around shared fears that Catholic immigrants from Ireland and Germany were overwhelming the country and acting against white Protestant interests. So the fear of a Catholic ghett…
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[Parts of this essay first appeared in Tablet Magazine.] Sudan will soon split in two: an African Christian-majority South and an Arab Muslim-majority North. On July 9, the Southern Sudanese government is expected to declare independence from the Islamist regime in Khartoum, the final step in the process that will officially end a half-century of civil wars. But the prospects of a peaceful independence day look bleak. There is renewed conflict i…
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Twilight wars in the Middle East, Japan’s nuclear catastrophe, Deepwater Horizon, worldwide crop failures, massive die-offs of long-established species: it’s all so very scary. Looming over all of it is the idea that we foolish humans have triggered some deep-level physical processes (methane gas release, ocean acidification, etc.) that now possess an ominous life of their own. In these circumstances the word that slides naturally from the tongue…
Read MoreSince the Obama Administration said it would no longer defend the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) House Republicans have resorted to hiring George W. Bush’s former Solicitor General to defend the 1996 law declaring that marriage is between one man and one woman. Paul Clement has appeared before the Supreme Court several times including an appearance to defend Bush’s White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiativ…
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…es are fuzzy in Brooks’ book. This may be one of the things that makes his analysis inspiring; though it’s also a bit confusing, perhaps even dizzying. In his New York Times review, philosopher Thomas Nagel chides Brooks for believing and endorsing any old piece of data presented by a cognitive scientist, “however idiotic.” And, so, it seems important (to me) to underscore the extent to which Brooks is echoing and imitating the destiny-shaping amb…
Read More…It’s actually quite useful to look at the United Methodist vote as a blow against the rule of reason. All of the mainline denominations (the so-called “seven sisters”), including the United Methodists, claim to be guided by reason and human experience along with the authority of the Bible and church tradition. They all say that Jesus stands for inclusive love: no one is to be regarded as “less than.” The United Methodist Church even bakes the con…
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…gular and profound question that tugs at the sleeve of even the most sober analyst pondering the federal response to coronavirus. To wit, what the hell is it with these people? Although he’s since backed off the proposal Michael Gerson couldn’t figure out why Trump would decide to re-open the nation on Easter: To be sacrilegious requires some recognition of what is actually sacred — a type of knowledge Trump has never displayed. To him, choosing E…
Read More…asn’t a problem: Is the ability to buy contraceptives, that are now widely available—my Lord, all you have to do is walk into a 7-11 or any shop on any street in America and have access to them—is that right to access those and have them paid for, is that such a towering good that it would suffocate the rights of conscience?” It’s one of the bishops’ favorite arguments: that birth control is so cheap and so widely available that it isn’t even a q…
Read More…ieve was designed to overcome concerns among Mormons (who make up 7% of Nevada’s population) about comments by Angle’s pastor deriding the LDS Church as a “kooky” “cult.” More likely, it’s a move by Romney to appear relevant in the context of a Tea Party-infused, mortgage-meltdown-fueled voter backlash in Nevada. Nevada is about as volatile a place as you’ll find in the American West right now. It has the highest rate of mortgage foreclosures, mor…
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…lly benign. Christian nationalism is “politics,” we are told time and time again, and not “theology,” as when Skye Jethani, an evangelical pastor, and cohost (with Phil Vischer of VeggieTales fame) of the podcast “The Holy Post,” nonsensically claims that evangelicalism merged with politics “over the last couple of years” and has now become about “politics” instead of “theology.” In reality, Christian nationalism has been a significant component o…
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