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Accused of Anti-Semitism, Trump Aide Makes Ancestry Appeal

By Michael Schulson

…choice, and social performance, and those components of identity that are bestowed by birth. I don’t know Schmitz’s wife, and it’s not for me to judge how she does or does not engage with particular parts of her heritage. But there’s something discomfiting about Schmitz’s appeal to exculpation-through-genetics. Accused of anti-Semitism, he’s appealing to exactly the principle that many modern Jews have worked so hard to flee: that regardless of b…

Praying To The God Of The SUV

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…was offended and let the email sender know. It led to a rich and powerful phone conversation later that day where we both came to an agreement that, if followed logically, the examples tell a story of a God who is either capricious or lacking in any real power. If God can put small delays in the path of a few people headed for the Twin Towers that day, why not do that to all of them? If God has the power to save some, why not save all? Why not pe…

Under Water: Waiting for the Flood (of Awareness) in Louisiana

By Drew Konow

…ion has a strange way of inspiring reflection on personal property. On the phone, I told my mom, “I love your house. It is so perfect for you.” And I do. I love her house not because I grew up there (I did not) or because I’ve spent much time there (I’ve only visited once) or because of anything to do with the way it looks. I love her house because of what it stands for. It’s a symbol of her freedom. Freedom from every man who raised a hand to her…

Not All American Muslims Feel the Dread I Do

By Huma Mohibullah

…(correctly) at the uncertainty consuming me. Similar messages poured in by phone, email and social media throughout the day. It was as if someone in my family had died and people felt compelled to offer me condolences. The reality of living in a country in which the most blatant expressions of Islamophobia and other forms of hate are normalized does worry me. Even as Trump flip-flops on his promise of a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims ente…

As Long As There’s Fear, We Aren’t Ready for Atheism: A Conversation with Theologian and Ex-Priest Daniel Maguire

By Alana Massey

…to atheism than its more dismissive predecessors. RD spoke with Maguire by phone about his latest book and the future of belief. What was the impetus for undertaking this after a long career as a priest and theologian who was once a believer? I started out as the absolute true believer. I believed everything the Vatican taught. One of the things that helped me was working in a parish. I started to meet real people and to discover that some of the…

Pro-Choice, Progressive Jewish Groups Weigh In On Kagan

By Sarah Posner

I just got off the phone with Nancy Ratzen, president of the National Council of Jewish Women, who said the group would be issuing an endorsement of Elana Kagan later today. Ratzen, who said the NCJW has, since 2001, “engaged consistently on reviewing and taking positions and educating and mobilizing progressive Jewish community” on judicial nominations, said that the group would be working hard to see Kagan confirmed. “We think she has an except…

Madoff, Through a Glass, Darkly

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…some 80,000 investors? If they did not, then which of the above hypotheses best explains their amazing lack of discernment. There is no answer provided in the article, and indeed, there is little sense of how one could ever find an answer. This installment is less than half as long as the June exposé from Madoff’s secretary. That bears thinking about. The story about the secretary is much longer, much more substantive, than the one about the famil…

Does the Science Show that Spirituality Will Benefit Your Child?

By Michael Schulson

…navigate emerging adulthood, a process Miller discusses in depth. Over the phone, Miller spoke with The Cubit about adolescence, definitions of spirituality, and the reframing of spiritual experience as a pragmatic tool. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. So how are science and spirituality interacting here? Science is actually an elegant way for understanding spirituality. It connects what so many devout people have known thro…

The Banality of Bernie

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…micro-managed by men with photographic memories who could describe, on the phone at long distance, where a file was located, and what page in that file needed scanning. There was obsessive record-keeping, coupled with a mastery of spin. (Squillari suggests that Madoff planted several pieces of evidence in his office in order to be arrested on his own timetable and on his own terms). The most haunting line in the article is a description of the sta…

A Year After the Non-Apocalypse: Where Are They Now?

By Tom Bartlett

…to Wal-Mart, ate pizza in their hotel rooms, spent hours with them on the phone. Then, after Jesus was a no-show, I stayed in contact with them—the ones who would talk to me, anyway—over the following days and months, checking back in to see how or if their thinking had changed. I learned a lot about the seductive power of radical belief, the inscrutable vagaries of biblical interpretation, and how our minds can shape reality to fit a narrative….