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Peter Berger, Sociology’s Defender of God (1929-2017)

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…an impact in the United States. He felt that it had a better reception in Europe. In his last years he became increasingly interested in religion in a global context. His Center for Culture, Religion and World Affairs at Boston University became an important arena for scholars from different religious traditions to interact, and Berger became involved in trying to understand commonalities among the different faiths. He was also trying to understa…

Founder of Liberal Mosque in Germany Under Guard After Death Threats; And More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…push of what they call ‘ideological colonization’ from the US and Western Europe upon their communities. a tsunami upon their islands.” WCF’s Don Feder criticized politicians who promote kinds of marriage “from which society derives no benefit.” Feder, according to the Antigua Observer, “posited that homosexuals cannot fulfil the most basic purpose of marriage which is procreation and child rearing.” At Pride in London on Saturday, which mayor Sa…

“Tonight I Am Ashamed to be a Baptist”

By Sarah Posner

…r now. Such concentration-camp language is shameful, whether used in 1930s Europe or 2012 North Carolina. UPDATE: Perhaps Leonard might also have some words for the Family Research Council’s honoring another North Carolina pastor, Ron Baity, with its 2012 Watchman Award. Via Towleroad, Jeremy Hooper has compiled videos of Baity implying gay people are “worse than maggots,” comparing them to murderers, saying that “God signs the death warrant of an…

‘Religious Freedom’ for Atheists

By Austin Dacey

…it. Aan was arrested in a small town in West Sumatra on January 18 after a number of local residents assaulted him at work in an act of self-styled vigilantism. They were reacting to some of his postings on a Facebook page devoted to atheism: a note entitled “the Prophet Muhammad was attracted to his own daughter-in-law”; a comic suggesting the Prophet slept with his wife’s maid; and a status update reading, “If you believe in god, then please sho…

Ross Douthat’s Rosy Old-Time Religion

By Jerome E. Copulsky

…sideration to the Christian societies of the past: places such as medieval Europe, 16th-century Spain, and Puritan New England. A long and honest study of such societies might make Douthat rethink his instrumentalist defense of Christian orthodoxy and the virtues it supposable promulgates. He might have to face the problem of religious persecution and violence, of Inquisitions, torture, and hatred. He might see a past rife with the sin and brutali…

Church Controversy is in Georgetown’s DNA

By Peter Manseau

…ed to North America only when his religious order came under attack across Europe, supposedly for their tendency to interfere in matters of state. The Jesuits had a knack for giving voice to opinions that threatened their spiritual and political rivals. Given this history, Bishop Carroll would likely not be surprised to find his university embroiled in a controversy concerning the appropriate place of religious groups in civil affairs. He might be…

Traditional Marriage: One Man, Many Women, Some Girls, Some Slaves

By Jay Michaelson

…marriage, at most two hundred years old. Oh, and let’s not forget that in Europe and North America, marriage was considered a commercial proposition first and foremost—not a romantic one. Princes married princesses not because of fairy tales, but because their parents had political alliances to consider. Further down the economic ladder, people married for a variety of biological, commercial, and genealogical reasons—but rarely for love. (See Ste…

Cozy Cottage or House on Fire? Thomas Kinkade’s Theo-Aesthetic Legacy

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…of the French Revolution, the spoils of industrialization, and war across Europe left many balking at the so-called progress of the rational mind. Poets like Goethe and Shelley, and philosophers like Schiller, Kant, and Schlegel began to pay attention to the emotions, to intuition, and to aesthetic experiences that weren’t comprehensible by rational means. The Romantic-infused theologian Schleiermacher famously considered religion itself a matter…

Greek Abbot Arrested for Role in Financial Scandal

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…eek debt early in the new year; grinding new austerity measures imposed by Europe in the summer; a threatened Greek default in October; the inexplicable decision by the Greek Prime Minister George Panadreiou to call for a nationwide referendum on a deal immediately after the Europeans had hammered it out, thereby enabling the Greeks to pay off their debt to French and German banks at fifty cents on the euro. The shock of this unexpected proposal c…

Turkish ‘Lord of the Rings’ Has God, Guts, Girls, and Glory

By Haroon Moghul

…feel uncomfortable—we’re not used to seeing things from the other side of Europe. (The only Easterners in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy were swarthy orientals who’d sided with pure evil.) Maybe now we know how the rest of the world feels on watching some of our more self-centered thrillers, in which America alone can save the planet. But get beyond that and Fetih should feel very familiar—it’s a Turkish version of a summer blockbuster…