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Modern Vampires: Your Neighbors and Spouses

By Joseph Laycock

…ted researcher who uncovers too much. The power of this trope played out in 1996, when a reporter in New York vanished while doing a story on the vampire community. As I describe in the book, she was almost certainly killed by the Russian mafia. There is a certain romance in imagining that she was taken by vampires, but it is irresponsible to promote such a theory. I have encountered several cases of vampires suffering harassment, and this may bec…

Rise of Episcopal Village

By Becky Garrison

…r the past century, dropping from 80 percent at the start of the century to 12 percent. In an article I penned for Yale Divinity School’s Reflections magazine, I observed that explorations of alternative worship/emerging church culture have been transpiring over in the UK for decades. In 2004, the Church of England responded to this spirit by launching “Fresh Expressions of Church” in 2004. This initiative—which now includes an unprecedented partn…

The New Age Fantasy of a Celtic Church that Revered Nature and the Divine Feminine Never Existed — So What?

By Ed Simon

…nd mystery, and a “poetic rather than rational approach to faith.” In that spirit then, perhaps today we’ve no requirement of doxologies and theologies, of creeds and canons, but rather of feeling, sentiment, and perspective. Of poetry. Think of that apocryphal story about Saint Patrick preaching to the chiefs and druids of Ireland, first recounted by Caleb Threlkeld in 1727, wherein it was said that “by this three leafed grass, he emblematically…

The American Media’s Longterm Ambivalence About the Papacy

By Peter Manseau

…s cover. Taken together, the Time and Newsweek Catholic stories of the late 1960s and early 1970s suggest that, after nearly a half-century, the newsweeklies’ tendency to affirm the power of the Church had given way to boldface questioning of its unity, legitimacy, and relationship to civil authority. After the 1960s the newsweeklies cut back on coverage of all religion, and Catholic coverage was no exception. Treatment of the Church fell through…

Lo and Behold, the Sacredness of the Internet

By Martyn Smith

…rld we take more and more for granted (which feels like an updated form of spiritual warfare). When we collectively dream of a positive future for humanity it often begins to look like the interplanetary human existence proposed by Elon Musk. But does the story of the internet need to be told with all these religious resonances? A visit to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California (down the street from the Googleplex) uses thousands…

The Great Secret of Constitutional Law: Why Proposition 8 Will (and perhaps should) Be Upheld

By Bruce Ledewitz

…ecutive seizure of the steel industry during the Korean War and rejected a number of assertions of executive power during the Bush administration when given the chance. However, the courts are reluctant to act where rights are not clear, and assertions of equality are not traditional. Even in these contexts, the courts have rendered decisions protecting novel rights and groups. But they have done so with an eye toward what the public will accept….

Forget Right or Wrong

By Elizabeth Drescher

…t Supper. Feeding the Poor, Housing the Homeless A 7-year study with nearly 15,000 undergraduates at 136 colleges and universities across the country by Alexander and Helena Astin of UCLA’s Center for Spirituality in Higher Education provides some clues to the shaping of contemporary American religious practice. The Astins’ work has shown that at least for young adults, religious practice is much more linked to acts of social compassion, charity,…

Who’s Scared of Polygamy? A Restrained Case for the “Slippery Slope” Argument

By William E. Smith

…ding Martin Luther. This case and other developments around polygamy in the 16th and 17th centuries are chronicled by John Cairncross. What Lyndal Roper has said about experimenting with marriage in the Reformation holds true for our time too. We have been busy overhauling our marital system at least as thoroughly as happened in the Protestant Reformation so we must ready ourselves for a debate on polygamy, as they had to. And the Reformation deba…

Liberty University’s In-House Conversion ‘Therapist’ Retires, But Will the Christian School Cease This Discredited Practice?

By Lucas Wilson

…, since almost all students who matriculate to Liberty are above the age of 18, such a protection would not have applied. In truth, those over the age of 18 are protected under consumer fraud laws. But since Emerick always framed his services as “pastoral counseling”—a broad umbrella term that does not require a professional therapy license—and since there was no direct monetary exchange between Emerick and his “thousands of sons,” such laws would…

Why We Must Reclaim “Religious Freedom” from Christian Conservatives

By Bill Berkowitz

…ncreasingly part of our public life. And the inquisitional and persecutory spirits that inevitably follow from them are beginning to show as well. One of the most significant Supreme Court cases was the Hobby Lobby decision. Could you briefly explain that case and its overarching significance? I think the 2014 Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores Inc., is a turning point in American politics and jurisprudence, the effects of which will be felt for a long…