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Omar Ahmad: Muslim, American, Cowboy Boot Aficionado (1965–2011)

By Wajahat Ali

…dialog that we will get to know each other!” He leveraged his good-natured spirit in politics, and was elected to the city council of San Carlos, and from there, to the mayor’s office. In that position, he did what every American mayor does, he fought with the Firemen’s Union. In all his activities, he remained committed to his faith. He helped nurture and train Muslim-American leadership. He was a behind-the-scenes mover, who used his vast entrep…

Tokyo Governor Says Tsunami is Divine Punishment—Religious Groups Ignore Him

By Levi McLaughlin

…began soliciting relief funds; as an organization that survived the January 17, 1995 earthquake in western Japan and provided relief to residents in Kobe, they are eager to help victims of this latest natural disaster. World Vision Japan is gathering relief funds and is working to aid victims; Caritas Japan, the Catholic charity, is gathering donations and working with dioceses to provide support in the afflicted region; the United Church of Chris…

Paul Schrader’s “First Reformed” Depicts Death Struggle Between Hope and Despair

By Peter Laarman

…for destroying those who destroy the earth. It seems pretty clear that the spirit of radical mystic Thomas Merton hovers over this film. Merton’s name comes up twice in the screenplay, and both Schrader and his protagonist seem to resonate with the words that Merton wrote in 1962 to Ernesto Cardenal, the Nicaraguan theologian, poet, and revolutionary: The world is full of great criminals with enormous power, and they are in a death struggle with e…

Is the Satanist Behind 10 Commandments Challenge Sincere?

By Joseph Laycock

…hosts, dubious psychotherapists, “cult cops,” and Christians interested in spiritual warfare sent America into hysteria over Satanic conspiracies that resulted in innocent people being prosecuted and imprisoned. Greaves initially assumed stories of criminal Satanists must have some basis in fact. He sought out self-identified Satanists, meeting a priest of the Church of Satan and even former members of The Process Church of the Final Judgment. Whi…

The Sacred and the Dead: ‘Friend of the Devil’ is a Love Song

By Pitman B. Potter

…e half-century they’ve been playing together can be seen to exemplify this spirit of love for one another in community. “Friend of the Devil,” co-written by Jerry Garcia and the band’s longtime lyricist (and official fifth member) Robert Hunter, is a good example. We are invited to empathize with the outlaw who is running from the sheriff and established society: “Got two reasons why I cry away this lonely night. The first one’s named sweet Anne M…

Who Benefits From Standardized Universal Time? And Other Questions to Ask As You Set Your Clocks Back This Weekend

By Michael Schulson

…spite the best efforts of business leaders and other reformers in the early 1900s, who wanted a year of 13 evenly spaced months, we still use the idiosyncratic Gregorian calendar, enacted by a 16th century Pope. “The global history of time reform shows how uneven, slow, and full of unintended consequences interconnectedness was,” writes Ogle. She may be overstating the case a bit: time reform was not a perfect, triumphal march for Universal Progre…

Why it (Still) Makes Little Sense to Call ISIS Islamic

By Haroon Moghul

…gions. How did Muslims respond to abolition, which mostly took place in the 19thcentury—as it did here in the U.S.? Interestingly, Mattson cited two objections to abolition. Traditionalists were not against the idea of blanket manumission per se, but they either argued that the Shari’ah offered no mechanism to effect such a decision, or that “our slavery is not like American slavery”—a fascinating indication of the interconnectedness of the world—…

‘Let It Be Unto Me’: Akin, Rape, and the Early Church

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…pretive chasm” separating two versions of the same story; the first told in 1752 and the second in 1836. A monk is told to keep watch over the body of a girl whose family believes has recently died, but instead forces himself upon her sexually. In the morning, it turns out that she is not dead, but was just in a coma. In due course it becomes clear that she is pregnant. In the 1752 version it is assumed that the monk must have known she was alive,…

Netflix’s Carlton Pearson Biopic, “Come Sunday,” Reveals Christianity’s Struggle for its Soul

By Peter Laarman

…Global South—the descendants of people who were “saved” through the work of 19th century European and North American missionaries—from the descendants of those very same missionaries who no longer find it possible to believe that God hates gays. It’s a drama that is literally tearing apart some of the world’s best-known international communions—Anglicans, Methodists, Lutherans, even Roman Catholics. Come Sunday is at its most compelling when it sh…

Unauthorized Catholic Immigrants will Renew a Christian America, Archbishop Says

By Marie Friedmann Marquardt

…e a special duty today to be the guardians of the truth about the American spirit and our national identity.” In fact, Archbishop Gomez argues, immigrant Catholics “without proper documentation,” who share the values of “faith, family, and community” are “the key to American renewal.” Yes, Archbishop Gomez is arguing that unauthorized immigrants not only deserve the chance to adjust their status to live legally in the United States, but also hold…