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Modernity’s Fraternity: What Dan Brown Gets Right

By Samuel Biagetti

…on, but it’s hard to know what else to call it. Such misrepresentations of Freemasonry tend to reinforce the organization’s self-image as a benevolent and admirable society—powerful, yet harmless, like a friendly giant. Brown stresses their inclusiveness and tolerance, even to the point of fallacy. At one point Langdon is rescued by an African-American man who is a thirty-third degree Mason of the Scottish Rite and a lodge brother of Peter Solomon…

Book Burning and the Scapegoating of Islam

By Eric Reitan

…the West, book burning has come to symbolize the totalitarian rejection of free expression—a desire to enforce conformity of thought. While there is no doubt that something like this is going on with Terry Jones and his church (not to mention Phelps), there is another symbolic meaning that is more ancient and, I suspect, more instructive. I have in mind the symbolism of making burnt offerings to supernatural powers. Rene Girard is a philosopher wh…

New History Finally Recognizes Afro-Creole Spiritualists

By Paul Harvey

…lic, and hailed from economically successful families. Their families were free during the antebellum period, and they were politically active. Their séance records are utterly fascinating. Nearly all the communications were recorded in French, and messages arrived from Abraham Lincoln, Napoleon Bonaparte, John Brown, Montesquieu, Robert E. Lee, Confucius, Robespierre, George Washington, Jesus and Toussaint Louverture. And that’s an abbreviated li…

RDBook: Whither the Religious Left?

By Bill Berkowitz

…acknowledges climate change, for example, but he is a fierce proponent of free markets—and so ideologically rigid that it is difficult to imagine him getting behind the kinds of solutions that could address what needs to be done. Similarly, he is so fiercely antigay, and supports African political and religious leaders who advocate criminalization of homosexuality, that it is difficult to imagine that the HIV/AIDS work for which he receives such…

‘Religious Freedom’: Constitutional Principle or Electoral Politics?

By Frances Kissling

…hat is political, but respectful of the constitutional limits on religious freedom. It has correctly taken the position that public policies established to serve the common good require a clear and narrow definition of what is and what is not a religion. We do not just abandon the common good to unexamined claims that a public health or education provider is required by faith not to comply. We are prepared to give an actual religion an almost fre…

A Public Monument to Atheism—In Florida

By Becky Garrison

…think they’ve found a clever way to bring the Commandments in through the back door by invoking a “free speech zone.” They have to understand what that means—free speech means free speech for everyone. Those courthouse plazas may get awfully crowded….

Vietnam, the Analogy

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…ir of the 21st century. This connection has been brilliantly drawn in a recent book by Carol K. Winkler, In the Name of Terrorism: Presidents on Political Violence in the Post World War 2 Era. Drawing on extensive pre-9/11 research in a number of presidential libraries before they were closed to free public scrutiny, Winkler demonstrates how the language of “terror” has been a free-wheeling presidential signifier, easily exploited to justify any w…

Arrests Made in Murders of Atheist Bloggers in Bangladesh, But Int’l Response to Violence Remains Anemic

By Murali Balaji

…time warp and a time when vigilante violence was the means of suppressing free speech. To better understand these fears, it’s important to understand how Bangladesh has come to this point—and why many U.S. lawmakers continue to overlook its growing political and social turmoil. While Bangladesh eventually became its own country following a brief war between India and Pakistan, the remnants of those loyal to West Pakistan and opposed to a secular…

Resurrection of ‘Comstock Laws’ Would Threaten Access to Abortifacients — But Even That Fear Misses Bigger Picture

By Gillian Frank

…ual information and sexual representations, and expanded sexual rights and freedoms for most Americans. How that would play out on a Supreme Court with a conservative majority is uncertain. But rights and freedoms that are potentially at stake are concrete and bear directly upon the health of millions of Americans. At its core, Comstockery maintains that individuals cannot and should not be trusted when it comes to sexual and reproductive matters;…

Rewriting the History of Catholic Schools in America

By Marian Ronan

…religious identity. But even if Hughes was dedicated to American religious freedom, he certainly wasn’t dedicated to the freedom of Catholics within the church. Prior to his battle over the schools, Hughes spearheaded the destruction of the trustee system in Catholic parishes, a system that had since 1780 afforded the laity direct input into church governance. And as for Hughes’ dedication to poor Catholic children, it depends entirely on which on…