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As Hobby Lobby Heads to SCOTUS, Let’s Ditch Kosher Butcher Analogies

By Sarah Posner

…oherent. Well, not really. The argument about the kosher butcher (or deli) dates back to the early days of the fight over the contraception coverage requirement, before Hobby Lobby had filed its lawsuit. In his testimony before Congress on the proposed regulation, Archbishop William Lori, who led the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ religious freedom initiatives, made the analogy of the kosher deli being forced to sell products (he called it “…

Harold Camping, Prophet of Apocalypse, Dies at 92

By Daniel Silliman

…quisite accuracy of God’s book,” as he wrote in The Perfect Harmony of the Numbers of the Hebrew Kings. He worked extensively on dating creation and Noah’s flood. In 1970, he published The Biblical Calendar of History, a work he revised and re-published several times. These studies are dense and complicated, and seem mostly impenetrable and pointless to outsides. The fundamental presupposition, though, on which all this work is based, is that the…

Republican Presidential Candidate Courts Televangelists. So What Else Is New? (Updated with video)

By Sarah Posner

…r Jew” and a “billionaire in the kingdom of God.” But Copeland’s influence dates back even further than that. As I reported in my book, Copeland has been sought out by Republican candidates, including both George H.W. and George W. Bush, because of his vast wealth and followers. In 1998, Karl Rove was advised by then-Bush family religion advisor Doug Wead that Copeland “is arguably one of the most important religious leaders in the nation.” Never…

This Halloween, Think of Islam as a Religion of Pieces. Reese’s Pieces.

By Haroon Moghul

…ou (hint: promise candy), and act as if they’re all yours. Remember: large numbers of Muslims walking through bucolic scenery is especially reassuring to Hungarians. Incidentally, if you try to order a TSA uniform and your name is, say, Muhammad, the least of your problems will not be flying again. Actually, many of these ideas could end badly. For you. So think twice. Stop, drop and Tootsie Roll.™ Hooded young men with candy, after all, push arme…

Why are Nuns and Monks in the Streets? (Parts I & II)

By José Cabezón

…he early afternoon, cameras in hand. It is not uncommon for tourists to outnumber monks in the debate courtyards during this time. This is obviously disruptive, making a spectacle out of a serious educational pursuit. Monastic response to the Chinese government policy of limiting monastic enrollments is at least in part the result of a clash between the secular, materialist, security-concerned worldview of the Chinese state, and the religious, tra…

Just Like January 6, One of the Most Disturbing Aspects of the Right-Wing Coup Attempt in Germany is Who Was Behind It

By Annika Brockschmidt

…tails ties to the Reichsbürger milieu. Experts attribute the stark rise in numbers to a heightened awareness and the agencies’ attempts to reduce the number of unreported cases. The conservative Minister of the interior of the previous Merkel administration, Horst Seehofer, had always refused to conduct a study of right-wing sentiments in the police and military, in spite of the warnings of social scientists who urged him to commission one. For ye…

A Startling Number Believe You Can Be Jewish Jesus Follower; Why It’s Not As Crazy As It Sounds

By Michael Schulson

…that number seems staggeringly high. A full third? Once you delve into the numbers, though, 34% doesn’t seem quite so high. Really, Pew has asked an excellent question—a question that reveals the full tangle of ambiguities and inconsistencies that surround the topic of Jewish identity. First, some background: when the researchers at Pew set out to conduct this survey, they quickly ran into a problem that’s been under discussion for at least two th…

Report from Paris During COP21: Let Us Not Commit Global Suicide

By Donna Schaper

…et. The Kyoto Protocol, which commits industrialized countries to internationally binding emission reduction targets, was the first climate treaty to emerge from this process. It was passed at COP3 in December 1997 at Kyoto, Japan and came into force in February 2005 when a sufficient number of developed countries signed the agreement; the United States did not, hampering negotiations for the next decade. A successor agreement, involving all count…

Students at Conservative Catholic College Speak After Sudden Cancellation of Pro-Gay Speaker

By Rob Shryock

…llege they call ‘home’ would act this way.” When I spoke to Corvino on the phone Tuesday, he seemed to be wrestling with the same concerns, noting that the school’s sudden cancellation of his event sent the message that the presence of openly gay folks was like “a virus that might infect the students if they’re not protected.” Corvino reflected this same concern in a blog post Wednesday, It’s difficult not to feel as if the Providence College admi…

Prosperity Gospel and Foreclosure

By Sarah Posner

…make a “Passover offering.” Seven is a biblically significant number, the number of completion and perfection, and in this spring of 2007 the Praise-a-thon began on Easter Sunday, the seventh day of Passover. If you make the Passover offering, Munsey claims, God will give you seven blessings: God will dispatch an angel to lead miracles; rid you of your enemies; bless you with prosperity; heal you; give you longevity; give you an inheritance you k…