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“The Gift of Gay”: Father Matthew Kelty, Confessor to Thomas Merton, Dies at 96

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…ord at Gethsemani; and even a cursory walk through the Abbey’s gift shop today demonstrates how many of the monks have taken up Merton’s call to creativity in the written and visual arts. Father Matthew Kelty was no exception, though he came to his creativity slower than most. Like Merton, he left Gethsemani for a time; unlike Merton, he always intended to return. He spent three years (1970-1973) with a small Cistercian community in Oxford, North…

The Princess Bride: Royal Weddings for Everyone

By Katy E. Shrout

…ormative power of consumption seems to be part of the magic of the wedding day for many women. On this day I am more beautiful, elegant, and radiant than any other. On this day everything is perfect and lavish and matching. A real-life royal wedding, televised and celebrated by millions, represents and encapsulates this magic for those who eagerly watch and read about it. It might be tempting for some—especially for anyone nostalgic for some mythi…

“Religion, O Diabolic”: Lamenting Religious Violence, Then and Now

By Ed Simon

…of Protestants in the streets of Paris. The very phrase “St. Bartholomew’s Day” came to signal Catholic zealotry and to stand for brutality in the name of religion. Twenty years later, in Marlowe’s “The Massacre at Paris,” a character declaims, “begin those deep engendered thoughts / to burst abroad, those never dying flames, / which cannot be extinguished but by blood.” In a century ravaged by religious violence, the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacr…

The General’s Son Recounts Very Different Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

By Ira Chernus

…id details that stick in the mind precisely because they are such ordinary day-to-day occurrences under military occupation: the mother who cannot go out to get water for her six-year-old daughter to drink, and is told by a soldier to let the kid drink dirty dishwater; the resistance leader who is released after years in Israeli prisons, then picked up the very same day and “detained” without charges for another full year; the little girl walking…

Egypt Goes After Gays to Silence Islamist Critics; South Africa’s ‘Open Mosque’ is Closed; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…themselves, who are only recently retaking responsibility for maintaining day-to-day order after years of military control. By making headlines through the arrest of alleged homosexuals — along with sex workers and atheists — police can show their bosses that they are keeping busy, while also showing the public they are standing up for Egyptian values after years of being associated with quashing democracy and public protest. South Africa: ‘Open…

More Religion in Politics? New Poll’s Findings May Be Overhyped

By Diane Winston

…se issues were also in the news the day before the new Pew survey (and the day before that and the day before that too) it’s hard to see the 300+ articles—proclaiming everything from “Americans fear religion losing influence, say churches should speak out more” to “More Americans want religion in the politics”—as anything more than sociological clickbait. News outlets are playing the culture war card because the fight over religion’s role in polit…

A Religion Scholar Gets It Wrong on Indiana’s RFRA

By Danny Fisher

…ginal version of the state’s RFRA “simply [offered] religious minorities a day in court.” As he said: “Our battles over ‘family values’ are threatening to kill religious liberty. And liberals do not much seem to care.” It’s obvious at once from his rhetoric that Prothero is on shaky ground: instead of offering any justifications of substance for SB 101, he resorts to scolding. He supports both gay rights and religious liberty, he says: “but it is…

Back Sabbath: Is the Lord’s Day Making a Comeback?

By Joanna Brooks

So saith the New York Times. I grew up in a world where Sundays meant at least three hours of church, a mediocre spaghetti dinner, and long stretches of afternoon quiet: no television, no buying, no playing outside, no swimming—not even in our backyard pool under the perfect 80 degree Southern California skies. Observant mainstream Mormons still keep the Sabbath this way, pretty much. Except for the phones. The magic phones with their swirling sc…

Republican Scandals Drag Secretive ‘Family’ Into the Big Time

By Randall Balmer, Anthea Butler, Evan Derkacz, Jeff Sharlet, and Diane Winston

…time between the questions. I’ve been thinking about it since Independence Day, and especially after taking a little walk yesterday over to the grave of Frederick Douglass (who penned one of my favorite July 4th remembrances [given on July 5th!], “What to a Slave is the Fourth of July?”). I don’t think it’s “religious” or “political,” in the sense that both are intertwined so murkily within The Family’s actions and belief system. If members really…

Is Norway’s Suspected Murderer Anders Breivik a Christian Terrorist?

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…a policeman’s uniform). Perhaps the most interesting section is Breivik’s day-by-day accounts of the weeks preceding the July 22 bombing and massacre, a chronology that ends with this matter-of-fact statement: “I believe this will be my last entry. It is now Fri July 22nd, 12.51.” Moments later he posted the 1500-page book on the website before allegedly driving to downtown Oslo to detonate the bomb that killed seven and shattered major buildings…