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Doubt v. Predator: A Vatican II Parable

By Gabriel Mckee

…l made in the play, but it’s still clear: Doubt paints a picture, from the cheap seats of the Bronx, of the Church in mid-transformation. But things are even more complicated than that, as the story is also an elaborate critique of the way power is wielded in the Church—and the fact that Vatican II managed to change very little. Sister Aloysius is paralyzed by her position, unable to do anything about Father Flynn directly because the Monsignor wi…

Why Bill Maher Gets a “C” in My Introduction to Religion Class…

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

I’ve just watched Bill Maher’s cheap-thrills-but-funny-and-semi-provocative Religulous and find myself fantasizing about having “Bill” in my Introduction to Religious Studies course, right next to Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and other sort-of-atheists. (I’m talking the nerdy academic’s version of “fantasy football” here.) And I give them the assignment I always give to my eighteen-year-old students: come up with your own de…

RDBook: Apocalypse Without God

By Nathan Schneider

…d the Apocalypse is at hand. If you look at Hal Lindsey, in The Late Great Planet Earth… …which became a movie with Orson Welles in it. Right. Lindsey was analyzing Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan. He read those political events in terms of a battle for oil. He wasn’t wrong. But Le Haye and Lindsey see all of this in terms of an impending apocalypse. If you look at LaHaye or Joel Osteen—they’re very different, of course—you will discover that the…

Richard Dawkins’ Atheist Academy of Unguided Truth

By Paul Wallace

…the existence of any God, given the wretched state of affairs down here on planet Earth, who could simultaneously be omniscient, omnipotent, and all-loving. I don’t remember the details. What I do remember are his questions, which cut through all the higher philosophical claptrap and jangled our nerves. He would look directly into our eyes and ask in his soft Irish accent, Who are you? Do you believe in God? Why? Do you believe in God because yo…

A Shining City: The Occupy Movement and the American Soul

By Elizabeth Drescher

…der dresses and ridiculously high-heeled shoes. They sipped from splits of cheap sparkling wine while their tuxedoed companions swilled the local brew, Budweiser—that, too, a faded American icon, sold off in 2008 to the Belgium-based multinational, InBev. No, of course, these were not the protesters who have begun to appear in more and more American cities, but keepers of the once-stable base of a certain version of the fabled American Dream: wedd…

How To Control Your Ungodly Urges… On a Budget!

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…o doesn’t love skinks? 6. Willpower! Is magical! 7. Find an accountability partner! Every time you are tempted to sexually harass a stranger, call your partner and make a confession. 8. Wear a rubber band around your wrist and snap it every time you think about harassing a woman! Rubber bands are cheap – mere cents. Why, you could snap yourself with a rubber band more-or-less constantly for the next year, for a fraction of what any of those fancyp…

Churches Can No Longer Hide the Truth: Daniel Dennett on the New Transparency

By Andrew Aghapour

…ing discoveries of science. Gods and flaming chariots are nothing, they’re cheap comic book fare, compared to what we actually have learned about stars and galaxies and the like. I think that there’s a sort of mirror image, an opposite of scientism, which has a real tin ear for the breathtaking awesomeness of science. All you have to do is listen to David Attenborough or Carl Sagan or other brilliant expositors of science to see just how jaw-dropp…

“Giving Godhead”: A Bloody Vision of Religion’s Deepest Influence

By Spencer Dew

…of wine and wafers, descent and rising up, kneeling and being filled with spirit. Krieger, like those ridden by rapturous moments at a revival, goes slack sometimes, and this book has its limp, cheap moments, cellophane grass and gassy puns that might only elicit an “organ yawn” from readers. It may not be the best poetry collection in English published this year—that may, in fact, like rivers of milk and honey or peace and goodwill between all h…

First Things First: Sexual Equality Just Is

By Kate Blanchard

…st Christian thinkers as a distraction from the more important life of the spirit. Saints no less than Augustine and Aquinas were clear that sex existed for procreation, with companionship (begrudgingly) as a secondary purpose. Following Jesus’ own path of virginity, however, was seen as the best life of all. Even when Protestant reformers emptied monasteries and convents, what they celebrated about marriage were friendship, parenthood, and sexual…

Can I Get Some Birth Control Pills With That Slushie?: Unpacking the Contraceptive Mandate Rollback

By Sunnivie Brydum

…usly espoused this idea that contraceptives are so widely available and so cheap that the mandate was unnecessary. He said “all you have to do is walk into a 7-Eleven or any shop on any street in America and have access to them.” Opponents of the mandate have consistently belittled the idea that contraceptives are a significant health care cost for women despite the fact that, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, birth control comprises betw…