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No Presidential Magic When it Comes to Oil Spill

By Gordon D. Newby

…lling in the Gulf brings the power of great destruction. And, even when we use our best resources to contain the damage, we seem to do more. Jacques Cousteau’s son, Jean-Michel, reported that the use of the dispersants that were meant to lessen the impact of the oil have only made things worse. They have changed the specific gravity of the oil so that it no longer floats on the surface but lurks beneath, destroying plants and animals into the dept…

Water Water Everywhere

By Amina Wadud

…me to wash with water in addition to drying with toilet paper every time I use the toilet. This is known as istinjaa’. In my fundamentalist days, I used to carry my own little cosmetic bottle to fill at the sink before entering a public toilet outside of the Muslim world. But in my minimalist old days, I may suffer the loss, but I manage without it. That’s why I love bathrooms in the Muslim world, which tend to have this nifty little hose attached…

SCOTUS’s Incoherent Masterpiece Cakeshop Decision

By Daniel Schultz

…to me it is one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use to—to use their religion to hurt others. It’s simply a factual statement followed by an anodyne opinion. I don’t think people should use their religion to hurt others, either. Does that make me a bigot? The broader point here is that Kennedy’s reasoning is simply incoherent. There is no way for government to remain “strictly neutral” when it comes to religious values. B…

The Rise and Fall of an American Gang: Religion as Camouflage?

By Spencer Dew

…ous criminal enterprises. The Black P Stone Nation has always recognized a use for religion. Whether this use ever went beyond mere camouflage, like a clerical collar worn for the purposes of a scam, remains an open question, and it’s not a question that gets answered in this fascinating but frustrating book, a chronicle of the shifting organization that, helmed by Jeff Fort (later Prince Malik) cornered a sizeable chunk of the Chicago heroin mark…

Did the Pope Claim Gay Marriage as a Threat to Humanity or Didn’t He?

By Peter Montgomery

…humanity itself. Brown not only claims that the Pope didn’t specifically use the words “gay marriage,” he says that there wasn’t even the suggestion “that gay marriage was the most important of these [policies that threaten the family] and he didn’t mention it at all.” Really? Immediately following his naming of the family as the most important setting for the education of young people, the pope defines family as being “based on the marriage of…

Kim Davis, County Clerk, is Not a Person

By Ivan Strenski

…he United States of America, not some place where police extort bribes because they feel they own their offices, like franchises, or “turf,” onto which you have been unlucky enough to have trespassed. Public offices are not like the “businesses” Tony Soprano “owns,” the use for which you have to pay what he demands on top of the cost of service. Tony’s “businesses” are very personal things, part of himself. And, thinking this way about public offi…

Patriotism and Piety—Not For Conservatives Only

By Ira Chernus

…o. Like any strategist, I’m eager to learn whatever I can from my foes and use it against them. For that purpose, The Righteous Mind turns out to be useful. Haidt’s primary point is actually a good one: people on all sides of the political debate ought to listen more carefully, and try harder to understand one another. He correctly identifies a cardinal sin of so many liberals and lefties: failing to give conservatives an honest hearing. But it’s…

The Sacred and the Dead: Three Ways to American Beauty

By Aaron K. Kerr

…n environment,’ which is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.” ~Music Promoter Bill Graham, April 29, 1971 One sentence, spoken by an anonymous “usher” to a maverick producer who then riffed to boisterous audience at the Fillmore East—all the words spoken then say more than any of us digitally-connected folk will be able to say. But as Bill Graham tells it, “you can use sentences and sentences,” so we might as well try. I nominate the Gratefu…

In His ‘Forgiveness Day’ Sermon — a Slightly More Sophisticated ‘GloboHomo’ Rant — Kirill Lays Out an Authoritarian Vision in Which His Version of God Might Dominate and Rule the Human Race

By Sarah Riccardi-Swartz

…e people of Donbas rightly opposed the freedom of western civilization because it brought with it a test of faithfulness to God—i.e. pride parades (это гей-парад). By not giving in to this sin, Kirill argues that Donbas (and seemingly Russia as well) are thus strangers to the world (то они не входят в тот мир, они становятся для него чужими.), not welcome in the West because of their oppositional stances on pride parades, which he labels as sin. W…

What Can Fascination With ‘Sister Cindy’ Teach Us About the ‘None’ Generation?

By Chad Bauman

…rvative and conspiracy-loving aunt. Silly and misguided, perhaps, but, because of her advanced age, becoming rapidly irrelevant, and so ultimately harmless and loveable (at least if she’s nice to people and doesn’t vote). Perhaps, then, their attitude towards Sister Cindy reflects shifting attitudes about religion itself. But if so, what does this mean for religion? Jed and Cindy portray the mocking responses of their audiences in the terms of spi…