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Ross Douthat’s Rosy Old-Time Religion

By Jerome E. Copulsky

…istian societies of the past: places such as medieval Europe, 16th-century Spain, and Puritan New England. A long and honest study of such societies might make Douthat rethink his instrumentalist defense of Christian orthodoxy and the virtues it supposable promulgates. He might have to face the problem of religious persecution and violence, of Inquisitions, torture, and hatred. He might see a past rife with the sin and brutality, enforced less by…

Schools Should Compete for Cash, Obama Says

By Peter Laarman

…ton’s wedding to a hedge fund manager, or on Michelle Obama’s time away at Spain’s most expensive resort, except to say that one begins to miss the Carters and plain cardigans. Smelling the Money This yawning split between winners and losers is the all-important context in which to evaluate Barack Obama’s signature education initiative, appropriately dubbed “The Race to the Top” (RTTT). Because this is Obama’s program (and because so many liberals…

Cozy Cottage or House on Fire? Thomas Kinkade’s Theo-Aesthetic Legacy

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…f the great vehicles. Casper David Friedrich in Germany, Francisco Goya in Spain, and William Blake and JMW Turner in England are among the best known. Across the Atlantic the Hudson River School of Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Church, and Thomas Cole followed their European counterparts as Westward expansion and continental colonization revealed dramatic new visions of nature: the Hudson Valley, the Catskills, the Rockies, and eventually the Yosemi…

Does the Inquisition Explain the Modern World?

By Gordon Haber

…Charles Lea, author of the groundbreaking A History of the Inquisition of Spain, quotes at length from the “passionless, businesslike” report of the recording secretary: One cord was applied to the arms and twisted [….] She was told to tell what she had done contrary to our holy Catholic faith. She said “Take me from here and tell me what I have to say—they hurt me—Oh my arms, my arms!” which she repeated many times and went on “I don’t remember—…

The Islamists vs. The Markets: Egypt’s Election Analyzed

By Haroon Moghul

…t Islamist, and not explicitly secularist. Moreover, there are of course a number of practical reasons the Islamist parties may have done so well: they are well-organized, they have great social service and charity programs, and they have won the respect of many of their fellow citizens for their years facing oppression, discrimination, and outright torture. Once they’re actually in government, they will be judged on their performance, and not on…

Yom Kippur Prayers for Corporate Atonement at Occupy Wall St.

By Sarah Posner

…words were said by Jews who were forced to convert under pain of death in Spain hundreds of years ago, and more recently by our gay brothers and sisters who couldn’t yet live the truth of their identities. Today, we are thinking about a different kind of commitment made under duress. A big part of our financial crisis was caused by a banking system which misled and pressured, which up-sold and implored us to sign without reading, where fraud was…

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

By Nathan Schneider

…zed labor continued its tailspin in the face of budget cuts. From China to Spain, people around the world trying to replicate what they saw in Egypt. In the coming months, ambitious environmentalist, anti-corporate, and anti-war actions are being planned in the United States. People are frustrated, and they’re inspired. But Stout, a professor of religion at Princeton, insists on asking another question: How will they organize? Why are the organize…

What Robot Theology Can Tell Us About Ourselves

By Michael Schulson

…t people don’t connect faith to the seemingly commercial details of, say, iPhones, or robots that care for the elderly, or the dynamics of personal relationships conducted over Skype, even though these changes have a bearing on the way we relate to other human beings. As an alternative to this silence, Staley’s work touches on two possible modes of religious response to technology, which I’ll call—because sci-fi topics deserve sci-fi names—the Str…

A Tiny Little Mecca for
the West

By Haroon Moghul

…y Bosnia becoming a home for many such Western Muslims, ourselves small in number, eager for a cultural reference, and desperate for a relevant and rooted spirituality. While southern Spain has that kind of draw, it cannot help but evoke a vanished people whose absence deflates every present moment. And though Turkey will have impact enough on Islam worldwide, it is too big, too overwhelming, and perhaps not quite Western enough to do what Bosnia…

The Folly of Arab-West (Elite-Elite) Dialogue

By H.A. Hellyer

…influenced it tremendously, both through Western Arab countries like Arab Spain (al-Andalus) and through continued ties through the ages. The West intervened as an imperial and colonialist power in different parts of the Arab world over modern history—and Western culture exists throughout the contemporary Arab world through globalization and popular culture. But inside of this first problem itself are two key issues that need to be addressed: the…