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Penn Jillette’s Signs You May Already Be an Atheist

By Steve A. Wiggins

…might taste nice coming back up.” Not wanting to give too many spoilers, just let me state that if you can read the hairdryer story without ending up snorting aloud, you’re made of iron. But does Jillette accomplish his goal of demonstrating the truth of atheism? Probably not. The problem comes in the form of the issue itself: we are all experts when it comes to religion. Not even a magician can convince us we’re wrong. As the subtitle indicates,…

The Intellectual Source Code For National Conservatism Can Be Found at This Niche Catholic Publication

By Peter Schwartz

…ed the reactionary and traditionalist political theologies of Joseph de Maistre, Louis de Bonald, Juan Donoso Cortés, Julius Evola, and Carl Schmitt, many of whom happen to be influential among the current crop of National Conservatives. What we commonly today refer to as illiberalism, and what we see emerging in predominantly Catholic European nations—most notably in Hungary, but also in Poland, Austria, France, and Italy (and in former Soviet Ea…

Special Report: Have Evangelical Colleges Succumbed to “Theological Paranoia”?

By Chrissy Stroop

…, like all faculty, had signed. It was recently revealed that Wheaton Provost Stanton Jones called the remark itself “innocuous,” and that other Wheaton faculty who recently expressed solidarity with Islam have been let off the hook with much simpler clarifications. Many commentators, including some prominent evangelicals and Wheaton faculty, are thus not buying the administration’s rationale for its treatment of Hawkins. “Dissenting professors ar…

None Means None (Not Atheist, Agnostic, Unbeliever…)

By Elizabeth Drescher

…rns of the “religiously unaffiliated”—a designation some Nones also find distasteful because it makes religious participation the basis for identification rather than… rather than what? “Even ‘agnostic’ or ‘atheist’ carry a lot of cultural baggage that I just don’t want to take on,” explained an undergraduate at a liberal arts college in Ohio who periodically joins fellow students at a Friends meeting across from campus. He reports that he prays “…

More Mixed Signals from Pope Francis; Church of England Wrestles with Rifts; Faith Groups Lobby Pro & Con on Irish Referendum; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…[Sister Jeannine] Gramick, speaking by phone from Assisi, the pilgrims’ last stop before heading to Rome. “It’s very heartening to people who have felt alienated and rejected for so long, so we are feeling very hopeful.” “While LGBT Catholics hope for changes, they are realistic enough to know that Francis may not make those changes,” said [Francis] DeBernardo. “But he is doing things that will help their spiritual lives.” In another commentary t…

The Sacred and the Dead: The Trouble with Sugar Magnolia

By Kaya Oakes

…lways did, “don’t you love the song ‘Ripple?’” Maybe I cringed, but he insisted we listen to it right then, so we did. Eventually, through years of conversations, we made it, song by song, through the entire American Beauty album. Steve passed away in June of this year. That was 15 years after our “Ripple” conversation, and today, there are hundreds of Dead songs on my phone and dozens of live recordings in playlists, even a nod when I see a Deadh…

Waiting for Lightning to Strike: A Wobbly Agnostic among the Atheists

By Carolyn S. Briggs

…believers. However, she says that atheists don’t want to dig up Jesus Christ just so they can crucify him all over again. The audience laughs. “I know,” she says, “that would be awesome, wouldn’t it?” She gives us a very long list of things she hates about religion. I concur with all of them. I too hate honor killings and the way Jerry Falwell blamed atheists and homosexuals for 9/11. She’s still angry about Galileo. Ditto. Another astronomer who…

Wichita, the Sequel: A Clinic Reopens at Ground Zero in America’s Fight over Abortion

By Kathryn Joyce

…r what they called The Summer of Mercy: protests that brought Wichita to a standstill for seven weeks as demonstrators blockaded Wichita’s abortion clinics, particularly Dr. Tiller’s, and were arrested in massive numbers. One local activist told me that nearly 25 anti-abortion groups had been birthed during the Summer of Mercy, some of which are still active. The protests so shaped the city that, 22 years later, both sides recall the fight vividly…

Death in the Desert: Riding With the Samaritans

By Lauri Lebo

…forcing immigration law. A federal judge issued an injunction in July against most of the law’s provisions until its constitutionality can be tested in court. Last week, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court decision that similar laws in Hazleton, Pennsylvania were unconstitutional. The number of deaths have increased even as illegal immigration has fallen dramatically in the past ten years. The economic downturn and high unemplo…

The Economy is Racism: Ending Race-Based Economic Violence is the Real Challenge of This Moment

By Peter Laarman

…he vast majority of Americans—i.e., for those who aren’t significantly invested in stocks and bonds—Wall Street isn’t worried. The smart money predicts that corporate profits will do just fine as jobs are further degraded in a variety of ways. As mentioned, investors are perfectly fine with the increasing power of the Big Five tech giants; they like what can be done by workers who no longer need to report to offices but whose output can be closely…