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AR-15 Lapel Pins are More Than Political Provocation — They’re Symbols of the Violence at the Heart of White Christian Nationalism

By Annika Brockschmidt

…nity” originated as a youth movement. The core principle was that a strong spirit required a strong body as well—a principle that made its way to the US and was fused with the frontier spirit and Manifest Destiny, as historian Peter Manseau explains: “All of this might seem far removed from holiday cards, until one recalls that it is Jesus himself who has been proposed as the exemplar of the ‘manly and virile’ faith found at the root of Christmas…

What This All-Star Christian Movie Gets Wrong About Christianity

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…that he was so moved by it, so shaken, that it can only have been the Holy Spirit. I don’t think I overstate things when I suggest that the screenwriters mean for us to interpret their movie by the same rubric. The movie moves us… or, well, it moves the people it was intended for. Aha, that must be the Holy Spirit at work! Theologically, though, such a rubric is entirely wrongheaded. If my mind should generate some pious-sounding blurt, and if I s…

New Book by Olivier Roy Argues that Aggressive Attempts to Christianize the West Actually Hasten Secularism

By Ivan Strenski

…ntities linked solely to the “pontifical right,” they catch Benedict XVI’s spirit of the ‘small church,’ alienated from an increasingly de-Christianized European secular culture. These revival movements include various “tradismatics” (traditionalist and charismatic) communities, the Alpha course group, the Sant’Egidio movement, the Community of Saint-Martin, Focolare Movement, Emmanuel Community. They all see the world as “pagan, rather than merel…

Why Go to Church If You Don’t Believe Anymore?

By Angela Bonavoglia

…fe? Who would design this? In the end, Jesus resigns himself, commends his spirit to God in faith. Was his faith rewarded? Will ours be? I want to know: how did Jesus really feel when it was over? Was it all worth it? Did he come to life again, not in body (that belief is fast becoming myth even in Christian circles) but in spirit? Will we? The service finished, I head out of that beautiful garden at the back of the church toward the street, in th…

The Economy is Sacred, Stupid

By Gary Laderman

…ries, and opinions will surface over the next few weeks about the mood and spirit of the nation’s shoppers. Shopping and buying, selling and spending—mundane, prosaic activities, or a matter of national life and death? This Christmas, the haunting spector of impending economic calamity will compete with the candlelit nativity scenes representing the glorious birth of Christ. Indeed in this light, the recent “shellacking” of Democrats—as President…

Pagan Martyrs, Murderous Monks: Agora Hits US Shores

By Nathan Schneider

…le matter is, exactly, Amenábar’s: “Surely nothing can be farther from the spirit of Christianity than the allowance of massacres, fights, and transactions of that sort.” Nor were his sentiments any fluke; Hypatia was widely admired by Christians in antiquity and afterward for her learning, chastity, and martyrdom—beginning with her onetime student Synisius of Cyrene, portrayed in the movie as a surfer dude trapped in bishop’s clothes. The Suda, a…

The Sacred and the Dead: I Love You More than Words Can Tell

By David Vanderveen

…the waterside. My favorite verse from the Bible is Genesis 1:2, “…and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” In the water is where I wrestle with God and where the truth of the universe tends to reveal itself to me. It’s home and it’s always humbling. Every July 4 since Mark left us, his friends, family, and neighbors have hosted a community paddle-out where kids, parents, and grandparents paddle to the outer reef at Brooks Street, wher…

The Other, Forgotten Apocalypse of 2011

By Jason Bruner

…arnate in the form, respectively, of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The man reputed to be the Holy Spirit allegedly died when he flung himself off a cliff, believing he would have the ability to fly. Later, in the early years of the Vietnam War, another movement spread which proclaimed that Christ would return, perhaps wearing American clothes and distributing firearms. These rather cursory comments indicate that over the course of…

Meeting on the Bridge: Fr. James Martin’s Ministry to LGBT Catholics Becomes a Book

By Kaya Oakes

…st as excited about the second part of the book, which is a series of Bible passages and meditations and reflections for LGBT Catholics, as I am about the first half of the book. The book is not only the invitation to dialogue between the institutional church and LGBT Catholics, it is a series of spiritual resources that I hope finds its way into the hands of struggling LGBT Catholics, particularly young people, who need to be shown that in the Ol…

Weeks After Turkey’s Failed Coup, Thousands Have Been Arrested Over a Book

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…inciples of social service, religious inclusiveness and an entrepreneurial spirit that matches the modern values of many educated Muslims. Gulen has requested that his ideas rather than his name should be promoted, so although the network of supporters is sometimes described in the press as the Gulen movement, his followers usually refer to themselves as part of the movement for “hizmet,” or social service. When Erdogan came to power as prime mini…