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In the Church of Lincoln

By Michael A. Elliott

…that Lincoln was, first and last, a cutthroat pol who could spin with the best of them. The most egregious sinners on this score, Wilentz writes, are the literary scholars who seek an aesthetic Lincoln, a philosopher-king of ideological purity. Since they can’t read history properly, these wordhounds proceed to make a series of fallacious judgments, often deeming Lincoln wanting in comparison to more doctrinaire abolitionists. If you think Henry…

Mitt Romney Plays the Tin Man at the NAACP Convention

By Anthea Butler

…ere possible to fully communicate what I believe is in the real, enduring, best interest of African-American families, you would vote for me for president.” Well, Mitt, we really don’t understand who you truly are in your heart. You don’t know how to show us what’s really there. And If you can’t fully communicate what you believe is best for African Americans at the NAACP convention, you can’t do it anywhere. So what was this speech about? I belie…

Is Bill Barr’s Belief in a Powerful President Actually Religious? A ‘High Papal’ Fable

By Ivan Strenski

…be just an intelligent and readable history of Christianity—Tom Holland’s best-selling Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World (2019). Far from being a ‘plain vanilla’ history of Christianity, I would argue that Holland, like Barr, offers a ‘high papal’ vision of the way things have been and should be. In his latest book Tom Holland serves up an example of a literature affirming Europe’s ‘deep Christianity,’ though tilted very muc…

RDPulpit: Rick Warren and the Limits of Empathy

By Tom Davis

…celebrity and the moniker “America’s Pastor,” are largely the product of a best-selling self-help devotional, The Purpose Driven Life. Stunning skeptical publishers, the book has sold 25 million copies and is, according to Publisher’s Weekly, the best selling hardback in American history. Revenue from the book has enabled Warren to stop drawing a salary and to refund the 25 years of salary he’d already drawn. Furthermore, the huge sums that contin…

COVID-Denying Father Sergei is Just the Latest Example of the Russian Orthodox Church’s ‘Holy Man’ Problem

By Katherine Kelaidis

…n Vladimir Putin has his own renegade holy man. The spiritual father knows best The trouble arises from what’s actually one of the more humane and helpful customs of Orthodox Christianity: the spiritual father. (There are technically spiritual mothers as well, but the exclusion of women from the ordained clergy has historically kept their numbers small.) Deriving from the ancient Egyptian monastic tradition (the oldest in the Christian world), it’…

“My Scientology Movie” Pokes the Hornet’s Nest

By Gordon Haber

…sts. My Scientology Movie is the latest from Louis Theroux, who is perhaps best known for his BBC documentaries about fringe groups like black nationalists and ultra-Zionists. Theroux’s work is ostensibly about investigating and perhaps humanizing extremism. But more often it exemplifies a kind of deadpan eccentricity-tourism associated with another British journo-entertainer, Jon Ronson. Both Ronson and Theroux specialize in pretending to take cr…

For Douthat, Church Either Uncompromising or a Secular Den of Promiscuity and Irrelevance

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…adviser. Teenagers, you will be shocked to learn, do not always elect the best-qualified student council members. They are occasionally swayed by other concerns, like popularity. Rather than spend a lot of energy trying to convince teenagers to be more thoughtful about their elected representatives—not her place, and besides, there’s little chance of success—Dr. Tinker tries to get the best outcome possible for the very specific projects with whi…

The Hyperreal Kimmy Schmidt

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…dreds of years old.) Does his optimism, cheerfulness, and desire to do his best belong to a lost past as well—along with Kimmy’s cassette tapes, the 90s, Indiana, Georgia, scrunchies, and preachers named Gary? In The Future of Nostalgia Svetlana Boym discusses the remarkable etymology of the word “nostalgia.” It looks like it might be an ancient Greek concept, since the root words are Greek: nostos, meaning “return home;” and algos, or “longing.”…

Purpose-Driven Empire

By Bill Berkowitz

…Stone cover remains unlikely, Pastor Rick Warren, author of the worldwide best seller, The Purpose Driven Life, and the Reader’s Digest Association have entered into a partnership that is destined to turn heads and enhance Brand Warren. The ubiquitous “celebripastor,” who hosted the Saddleback Civil Forum on Global Health for World AIDS Day at the Newseum in Washington, DC—where he will be honoring President Bush with an “international medal of p…

No, Sunni and Shia Muslims Have Not Been Fighting Forever

By Haroon Moghul

…art of a common Muslim world, and a shared peoplehood, which is apparently best expressed by suffocating any expression of dissent, going to war with one’s co-religionists, and demonizing opponents. If not brutally murdering them. If ever there were a need for some kind of secularizing sentiment, it would be here. But let’s also not forget that secularism emerged in religious communities—to prevent them from tearing themselves apart—and as such wa…