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Russian Multimillionaire Makes Peace with Anti-Christ Milk

By Joseph Laycock

…n of microchips, which certain voters equated with the Mark. In Russia, barcodes are the chief object of millennial paranoia, with the three extended lines of the barcode equated with the number ‘6’. (This is slightly more plausible than the American conspiracy theory that the logo for Monster Energy Drink is not a claw mark, but three misshapen Hebrew letter ‘Vav’s, which hold a numerical value of 6). Some Russians apparently remove the barcodes…

What the Lost Finale is Really About

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…sopher-characters, may or may not amount to the right answers. Finding the code might give answers, but not faith. Faith exists only when there is still doubt; it is born and thrives with questions. What Lost is Finally About (no spoilers) Every time I have watched Lost over the past six seasons, John Donne’s seventeenth-century refrain has echoed in my head: “No man is an island, entire of itself/ every man is a piece of the continent, a part of…

Fear Not, The IRS Isn’t Colluding With Angry Atheists

By Sarah Posner

…s of the 67-member Congressional Constitution Caucus, whose mission “is to promote an American future that remains true to its revolutionary past.” On Monday they sent a letter to IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, requesting responses to “deep concerns” about a “dismissal agreement” in a lawsuit filed by the atheist group Freedom From Religion Foundation, which sought to compel the IRS to enforce its own regulations prohibiting electioneering from t…

Pope Calls Out “Bad Shepherds” as Conservatives Prepare to Fight Change

By Patricia Miller

…octrine but a fight for the soul of the church. Francis and his allies are promoting a vision of the church that’s much more live-and-let-live, repeatedly turning to the word “mercy” to describe how they view the application of doctrine to the actual lives of Catholics, guided by a sense of the larger mission of the church as spreading the Gospel, not enforcing laws. Conservatives, led by Cardinal Gerhard Müller, head of the Congregation for the D…

Vatican Considers ‘Disordered’ Language; HBO Doc on LGBT Persecution in Russia; Nigerian Bishop Shifts on Anti-Gay Law; Arson at ‘Open Mosque’ in South Africa; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…That’s the point. The lashings are administered under Shariah law, a moral code dictated in the Quran that dates back the seventh century. Aceh’s modern-day whipping sessions are meant to play out as they did in ancient times — only with teenagers recording the beatings on their iPhones. In the 12th century, Aceh was among the first places of Asia to absorb Islam from seafaring Arabs. Today, the far-flung province remains proudly orthodox. It’s th…

Are Evangelical Films Destined to Leave Secular Audiences Behind?

By Daniel Silliman

…nting a fourth installment. Other major studio efforts haven’t cracked the code for commercial success either: Darren Aronofsky’s Noah earned a respectable $100 million, but cost an estimated $125 million to make. Son of God did okay at the box office, grossing $26.5 million its opening weekend, bolstered by support from American megachurch pastors including Rick Warren and Bill Hybels. But ticket sales quickly faded. Independent studios have done…

American Nuns and the Vatican: More Pain than Promise

By Mary E. Hunt

…Roman officials smiled on her. While variety is good, efforts like this to promote one way to be religious and eclipse go against the grain. Feminine Genius or Feminist Genius? A close look at the text leaves me disconcerted on three additional fronts. First, there is the essentialism. Women’s “feminine genius” is a patriarchal fiction. Yet, it is trotted out time and again by Pope Francis and those who would curry his favor. In this report, “comp…

How to Make Nones and Lose Money: Study Shows Cost of Catholic Sex Abuse Scandals

By Kaya Oakes

…words, as Nones. The economists involved in this study focused on the zip code where a clergy sex scandal had occurred. They found a “large and statistically significant effect” on charitable contributions in those zip codes after a scandal, and not only to Catholic-based charitable organizations. The researchers theorize that perhaps once a person stops attending church, the social pressure to be charitable declines. Interestingly, however, thes…

Pope Francis, Breeding Bunnies and Ideological Colonization

By Patricia Miller

…es. And for anyone who thinks that it’s a big breakthrough for the pope to promote “responsible parenthood,” here’s Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae: Married love, therefore, requires of husband and wife the full awareness of their obligations in the matter of responsible parenthood, which today, rightly enough, is much insisted upon, but which at the same time should be rightly understood. Thus, we do well to consider responsible parenthood in the l…

Pentecostal Prayer Gangs: New Film Documents Religion in a Brazilian Prison

By Nick Street

…mise is that the guard-inmate relationship is always violent, so there’s a code of conduct that is enforced by the inmates themselves. They’re hoping to export this model to Africa and other countries in South America, so they were eager to be able to say that an American sociologist had survived two weeks in one of their prisons as a way of proving that their experimental model works! What was it like? There were three other inmates in my cell, i…