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Trump is Helping the Economy… The Apocalypse Economy

By Jonathan Root

…to raise capital for Heritage USA. He was found guilty of fraud in October 1989 and sentenced to forty-five years in prison. He only served five. After being released from prison in 1994, Bakker wrote I Was Wrong (1996), in which he renounced the prosperity gospel and apologized for preaching a false message. Then he turned his gaze to another lucrative arena: the apocalypse industry. Here, Bakker has found a niche. As he put it on the show, his…

Thoreau’s Ferocious Critique of Philanthropy Does Not Make Him “Selfish”

By Alda Balthrop-Lewis

…which he doesn’t find any better. Thoreau’s diagnosis of our philanthropic spirit was that we give because it soothes our own pain. “I believe that what so saddens the reformer is not his sympathy with his fellows in distress, but, though he be the holiest son of God, is his private ail.” Philanthropy is driven, on this view, by the relief it offers the giver as a kind of penance. Contemporary social scientific work on charity supports Thoreau’s c…

Colonialism and the Crisis Inside the Crisis of Catholic Sexual Abuse

By Kathleen Holscher

…It has formed New Mexican Catholicism since the arrival of Spaniards in the 16th century, and colonialism came to form Catholicism—and Catholic sex, and Catholic sexual violence—anew with the arrival of Americans in 1848. For a century and a half after the U.S. annexed New Mexico, layer upon layer of Catholic life developed with and from the ongoing processes of U.S. colonization. Some of these developments in turn laid the groundwork for clerical…

What’s the Matter With Jewish Studies? Sexism, Harassment, and Neoliberalism For Starters

By Gilah Kletenik and Rafael Rachel Neis

…ate past. While we have no quarrels with these courses of inquiry, we have reservations about an academic culture that seems disproportionately invested in the study of the contemporary moment. This is not only because too often this unquestioningly reproduces the prejudices, biases, and constraints of the moment, but also because it has repercussions for adjacent subfields. In the context of the ongoing corporatization of higher education, resour…

Material(ist) Girl: A Philosopher Argues Against the Soul

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…nto this long conversation about reincarnation and I presented him with my reservations about such a thing. Something is left, namely the body, and as that disintegrates small creatures make use of the bits and pieces and in that sense it’s reincarnated, but there isn’t anything else, some nonphysical thing that has feelings and thoughts and memories and personality that goes into the little critters or into a person. What gets transferred from pa…

Spiritual Unplugging, Or What to Do When There is Wifi at the Ashram

By Matt Hamilton

…the community at-large. The latter just felt more honest. Coming back to a spiritual community felt familiar, yes, by which I mean dishonest, delusional, disingenuous. But I kept those reservations at bay. I meditated at dawn for 90 minutes. I heeded the silence imposed during breakfast. I dutifully attended lectures on meditation and ayurvedic healing. And during yoga, I stretched and breathed in step with the yogi. The schedule gave me structure…

Gay Chutzpah: An LGBT Synagogue Thrives

By Susan Henking

…est Side magazine and were less surprised. The only one who expressed some reservations was a prominent congregant whom I described as a political leader while he considered himself more of a spiritual leader. But he told me he read the book twice and found no other wrong descriptions. I think he was surprised I had so much to tell about the synagogue’s dynamics and its membership. I continue to meet with close friends on my visits to NY as well a…

Insurance Coverage for Abortion in Health Care Reform Threatened

By Carlton Veazey

…e “Protect Life Act”)—as soon as Congress convened in January. An estimated 14.5 million women who are insured by their mid-sized and large employers would be affected by these new restrictions, according to the Employee Benefits Research Institute. Contrast that to the fact that about 80 percent of private plans now cover pregnancy termination. (This is in addition to women whose coverage for abortion is already restricted to the narrow cases of…

Obama Shifts US Narrative Away from “Christian Nation”

By Michael J. Altman

…y utilized this narrative to push American Indians off their land and into Reservations, because God’s providence had destined this land to (White) Americans. Even the Bush administrations goal of “spreading democracy” smacks of the same sacred narrative that America has a Providential place in the world and its history. Obama shifts the sacred narrative. The President moves the foundational narrative from one of religion (not Christian or Jewish…

Thoroughly Modern Mormons

By Joanna Brooks

…importance of Christian service, forgiveness, and obedience, and offering spiritual encouragement to families caring for children with disabilities. Which image is correct? The sharp split between two reflects a persistent divide in representations of Mormons. Nineteenth-century stereotypes depicting Mormons as secretive, deluded, and possibly dangerous persist, while contemporary Mormon efforts have promoted friendly, hardworking, family-oriente…