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Is the Satanic Temple Just an Elaborate Prank? 10 Questions for the Author of ‘Speak of the Devil’

By Joseph Laycock

…e people assume that I must be either morally defective or under demonic influence to have even written a book about Satanism. There are also more sympathetic people who still assume TST is an elaborate put-on. There is a degree of smugness that accompanies this view: People who assert it imply they have “figured out the joke” and everyone else is still catching up to them. It’s true that TST began with a series of prank-like political actions. Bu…

With Methodist LGBTQ Vote and GOP Support for Trump, White Protestantism Has Hit Bottom

By Peter Laarman

…sh to keen and mourn about this, but there’s a phrase that comes to mind: “By their fruits you shall know them…and every tree that does not bring forth good fruit shall be cut down and cast into the flames.” CORRECTION: This article has been updated to reflect the fact that it’s the American Baptists, not the Southern Baptists who are included among the seven sisters….

In a Time of Irrational Fear and New Media: The Deadly ‘Dance Plague’ at 500

By Ed Simon

…ic well-being of your fellow citizens? At a time when a disturbingly large number of people believe in the “QAnon” conspiracy; when “pizzagate” inspired a gunman to raid a pizzeria; where “flat-Earthers” have a growing fan-base; or where people ingest Tide Pods; can we really argue that these aren’t as foolish a bit of mass hysteria as dancing oneself to death? Scottish journalist Charles Mackay contends in his 1841 classic, Extraordinary Popular…

Must We Burn Something to Get Attention?: 50 Years After the Catonsville Nine

By Jason C. Bivins

…olic in its goals and orientations. But while those protests multiplied in number, and continue still, they were drowned out by the hosannas of Ronald Reagan’s America™. If burning children are the price paid for our stock portfolios or geopolitical advantage, well, just keep smiling, America. The whole world is now the land of burning children. So, too, has America’s never-ending war (who are we fighting now, again?) marched on. There is fire in…

Must We Burn Something to Get Attention?: 50 Years After the Catonsville Nine

By Jason C. Bivins

…olic in its goals and orientations. But while those protests multiplied in number, and continue still, they were drowned out by the hosannas of Ronald Reagan’s America™. If burning children are the price paid for our stock portfolios or geopolitical advantage, well, just keep smiling, America. The whole world is now the land of burning children. So, too, has America’s never-ending war (who are we fighting now, again?) marched on. There is fire in…

Trump’s Easter Egg Roll: Inauthentic Christianity in a Bunny Suit

By Karen E. Park

…u and a transcript that rivaled his cringeworthy speech to the Boy Scouts. Flanked by the miserable-looking First Lady and the comically aghast Easter Bunny, Trump spoke to the children about the booming economy and the “$700 billion going into our military”—not topics usually favored by the kindergarten set. He also seemed to forget the name of the White House saying “there really is no name for it.” Though it made great late-night fodder for com…

First Things First: Sexual Equality Just Is

By Kate Blanchard

…n and men are created alike, in the image of God. And the first man soon declares his love for the first woman precisely because she, unlike the other creatures, is like him: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” If some men have yet to come to terms with the fact that women are—and always have been—fully human, it is no wonder their partners are looking elsewhere for satisfaction….

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…

When Being “Christian” Means Supporting Trump: An Argument For Hiding Your Faith

By Jonathan Malesic

…on the First Things podcast from October 7, regardless of Trump’s profound flaws, “I do think it’s important to support someone who is at least willing to admit that we have really serious problems in our country.” If that were all Trump were willing to do, then he would be a much better candidate than he is. But of course Trump would actually try to fix the problems he thinks we have, and he would suddenly have nuclear weapons in his toolbox. Amo…

Watching Preachers’ Daughters Right After the Boston Bombings While Teaching a Class on Augustine’s Confessions

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…ou toss the children of Eve into a vast, terrifying sea, which even those afloat on the saving wood can scarcely cross?… O hellish river, human children clutching their fees are still pitched into you… Human cruelty is like a deadly flood that people pay admission to chuck their own children into. Why children? Because they are the ones still being taught how to be “one of us.” Infancy seems to have something of a theological cipher for Augustine….