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Rejecting the Stranger: Why Rod Dreher’s Vision of Communal Christian Life Is Not So Benedictine After All

By Kaya Oakes

…mmunity, there have been female Benedictine communities for centuries, and today’s best known Benedictine writer is probably the theologian Joan Chittister, who was formerly the prioress of her community, the Benedictine Sisters of Erie, PA. As a female religious leader, Chittister’s interpretation of the Rule of St. Benedict offers some interesting contrast to Dreher’s. On the Benedictine charism of hospitality, Chittister writes that “Hospitalit…

Rumors of God’s Death Are Greatly Exaggerated

By Nathan Schneider

…ig puts it, the online community formed around Edge.org shows that some of today‘s most dynamic scientific minds all but assume atheism. Indeed, it seems implausible that the “dominant viewpoint at the American university” would be lacking intellectual vibrancy (unless, of course, Craig is claiming the intellectual bankruptcy of American academia). No; if nothing else, today‘s atheism is positively fueled by intellectual inquiry. This tone…

Strange Bedfellows: The American Far-Right and Today’s Jihad Do Have Something in Common — Just Not What You Think

By Suzanne Schneider

…t the Islamic State (or ISIS as it’s colloquially known) which argues that today’s jihad has little in common with earlier iterations of that phenomenon but does share certain features with far-right movements in the West, I approach the comparative question from a different angle. Setting aside the terrorism framework, which sidesteps crucial questions about the nature of militant organizations and their appeal at this historical juncture, I inst…

Religion is Not about Belief: Karen Armstrong’s The Case for God

By Brian McGrath Davis

…for most of Western history “belief” has meant nothing like what it means today. Today, when someone asks me if I believe in God, for example, they are asking if I assent to the proposed verity or the factual existence of God—and usually it is in reference to a very specific understanding of that God. Similarly, if I’m asked if I have “faith in Christ”, the question is whether I agree with the proposition that Jesus of Nazareth was divine, died o…

Blame Series Bonus: How Federal Policy Created America’s Fergusons

By Andrew Aghapour

…ite families for about two and a half times national mediate income, or in today’s dollars, about $125,000. That’s a home price that was affordable with an FHA or VA mortgage to working class families, black or white. Many black families could have afforded those homes in the late 1940s and 1950s, but they were prohibited from purchasing them by FHA policy. Today, those homes sell for $500,000 or $600,000. We now have a law, the Fair Housing Act,…

Obama Foes Misrepresent Islam with “Apostate” Tactic

By Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na`im

…in the pre-colonial era, as if they are the legal system of nation states today. Apostasy is only a crime in the penal codes of four or five out of the 40 Muslim-majority countries today. Dr. Luttwak claims that “another provision of Muslim law… prohibits punishment for any Muslim who kills any apostate, and effectively prohibits interference with such a killing.” This claim implies that there is something called “Muslim law,” which is either the…

Sex and Civilization: The Body as Battleground

By Jay Michaelson

…asure and marks the subservience of man to divine (or human) authority. We today are Abraham’s heirs, and re-enactors, of countless acts of circumscription. Today, as 2500 years ago, our own bodies are the instruments of authority, power, and control. Religious and political institutions of authority, usually backed up by violence, inscribe themselves on our genitals, our hairstyles, the ways in which we express our sexuality. We learn how to obey…

Putting the “Protest” Back in Protestant: Reclaiming the Spirit of Resistance

By Peter Laarman

…ord to resist government direction in matters of faith and public justice, today’s faux Protestants (DC division) appear only too happy to serve as the king’s errand boys and check their prophetic critique at the door. I am calling the self-willed domestication of what should be a fearless Protestant voice “Areopagitica in reverse” because Milton, in his 1644 anti-censorship polemic, was insisting on the necessity of the free interplay of ideas fo…

Gun Ownership as Sin—A Strategic, Secular Proposal for Gun Reform

By Ira Chernus

…espond to God’s love by loving our neighbors. The same call is still heard today in the push to control guns. But the power of religion to shape social values and government legislation was already waning even at the height of the Progressive era. The Social Gospel movement back then, despite its undeniable influence, was generally an adjunct to successful progressive programs, not their spearhead (with the notable exceptions of alcohol prohibitio…

Did Scientologists Take Over the Today Show?

By Becky Garrison

…em to at least separate the fluff from the facts. On Wednesday morning The Today Show ran a piece celebrating the work of Scientology’s Volunteer Ministers without addressing the concerns raised this organization’s “services,” which are designed by science fiction writer, L. Ron Hubbard. This story mentions that these counselors are providing “touch assists” without bothering to bring in a representative from the National Mental Health Association…