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The Collapse of the American Jewish Center

By Sarah Posner

…ng of drift away from and even hostility toward the establishment by young American Jews, and New York Times columnists Roger Cohen and Thomas Friedman, whose critiques are laced with laments over the decline, in Israel, of the liberal Zionism they grew up with and still cherish. Beinart now writes for Israel’s leading left-leaning newspaper Haaretz, where this summer he has repeatedly questioned Operation Protective Edge, both morally and strateg…

Hicksters, Stickers, and Affection: Why I Left D.C. for the Family Farm

By Timothy King

…turning to family land with significant existing infrastructure and a debt-free tractor. The root of affection, Berry argues, is imagination. Far from being ethereal and disconnected, imagination thrives “on contact or tangible experience.” It is when we imagine the well-being and future of the place where we are the things that share that place with us that we enter into a state of sympathy. Sympathy ignites a personal concern for the well-being…

Distant Churches and the Isolated Poor: Lessons from Katrina, Ten Years Later

By R. Drew Smith

…at the Superdome and at the airport. He also draws attention to the large number of congregations from New Orleans and elsewhere that rushed in to the city after the storm (ahead of and in spite of opposition from governmental agencies) “to serve as first responders . . . as relief centers and islands of stability and reconstruction for neighborhoods in crisis.” Ten years after Katrina, the poor continue to struggle in New Orleans, and in urban c…

Snake-Handlers, False Messiahs, and a Few Great Souls: 14 Who Died in 2014

By Daniel Silliman

…enating some moderate civil rights supporters. Author of numerous works on American-American religious history, including There Is a River: The Black Struggle for Freedom in America and Martin Luther King: An Inconvenient Hero, Harding taught at Illiff School of Theology in Denver, Colo. for more than 20 years. Nelson Bunker Hunt A Texas billionaire remembered mostly for his business exploits, Nelson Bunker Hunt bankrolled the religious right. He…

SoulCycle Looks to Sell its Soul

By Michael Schulson

…sses in the Hamptons (which includes early class signups) runs for $4,000. New York magazine interviewed one New York City rider who, by the magazine’s estimate, was spending more than $21,000 on SoulCycle each year. A single class, sans early sign-up perks, costs nearly as much as a month-long membership at my local YMCA. Meanwhile, back on SoulCycle’s website, instructors describe their work in frankly spiritual language. Here’s the lightly cond…

A ‘Vows’ Piece in ‘The Times’ Shows How Doctrinaire Christian Celibacy Has Become Compared to its Ancient Roots

By Joseph Amar

…d what other people their age did—with the exception, of course, of sexual contact. The chaste life, whether permanent or for a specified period of time, was meant to free those who practiced it to live more deliberately, to cultivate habits of empathy and compassion. Almost everything we know about the Covenanters comes from St. Ephrem the Syrian (307-373). Pious tradition reinvents Ephrem as a monk, a deacon, or a theologian. He was none of thes…

More Mixed Signals from Pope Francis; Church of England Wrestles with Rifts; Faith Groups Lobby Pro & Con on Irish Referendum; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…This is because society recognises the importance of the setting in which new human life, new members of society come into existence. “It is of vital importance to society that the definition of marriage is protected, sustained and supported.” India: Couple’s high-profile marriage in defiance of anti-gay law BuzzFeed reported last week on a gay couple that was married in a religious ceremony at the end of January. “A Sanskrit teacher conducted th…

Francis Visits the Church that John Paul Broke

By Patricia Miller

…umber of marriages within the church has declined by nearly half. Only the number of Catholic funerals has held steady. And while the number of Catholics overall has remained level, that’s largely due to Hispanic migration to the US; some 40 percent of those born Catholic have left the church. But numbers don’t tell the whole story. The church Francis will encounter is fundamentally different in character from the church of John Paul in two import…

Trans Protections in India and Malta; Death-by-Stoning Law in Brunei; Church-State Divides on Marriage

By Peter Montgomery

…Europe to make divorce legal, which it did by referendum in 2011. Brunei: New Law Allows Death by Stoning for Homosexuality, Other Offenses Next week a new law goes into effect in Brunei which will allow gay people and others to be stoned to death. The maximum penalty for homosexuality had been a 10-year prison sentence. “Rape, adultery, sodomy, extramarital sexual relations for Muslims, insulting any verses of the Quran and Hadith, blasphemy, de…

Heterosexual Martyrs and Gay Saints: Did AIDS Coverage Clear the Way for LGBT Equality?

By Diane Winston

…called out black churches as detached from the crisis. Despite the rising number of African Americans with AIDS, black congregations offered little comfort and even less outreach to the afflicted, according to press reports. Black churches were slow to respond, reporters noted, because most believed that homosexuality was a sin. Yet were black congregations any more homophobic than white churches with similar theology? If Jerry Falwell became the…