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From Licking Floors to Praying for an Inept Government, Churches React to C-19

By Daniel Schultz

…ciety, among the most physically intimate, and likely include the greatest number of vulnerable people. Even single members of large congregations can have a dramatic effect on how coronavirus spreads or doesn’t, as South Korea found out the hard way. While many aren’t meeting at all or are streaming services, some churches that do meet feel like they need to support those who need it, in worship or otherwise. My mother’s congregation in Madison,…

The Year of the Abusive Priest

By Anthea Butler

…logical language, which just doesn’t work well with the media, the Muslim world, or with governments charged with upholding laws. The upshot of this is, this scandal is going to get much worse before it gets better. Despite the letter to Ireland, in which he bashed the secular world, his meeting with abuse victims here in the United States, and the whining about the press giving him a bad rap, this Pope is toast. Whether he resigns or not, his Pap…

Protesters in Washington DC, the day before the January 6 insurrection, wrapped in American flags blow shofars.

Netanyahu’s Genocidal Religious Rhetoric isn’t Just an Appeal to the Israeli Right — He Has Another Constituency in Mind

By Brock Bahler

…ish Israel… Five or Six Hundred of these Barbarians were dismissed from a World that was Burdened with them.” This mythology of divine conquest is built into the American imagination, most obviously in the concepts of Manifest Destiny and American Exceptionalism, and is even cited as legal precedent. The Doctrine of Discovery is enshrined into several documents that claim the United States has privileged rights to Native American land, including t…

Modern Vampires: Your Neighbors and Spouses

By Joseph Laycock

…res were quick to point out that I could not really understand their life-world if I dismissed the existence of subtle energy. By contrast, fellow scholars expressed concerns that I might lose my objectivity or “go native.” Robert Orsi also describes this dilemma in his study of lived Catholicism. The other chapter that was cut concerned related communities. “Therians” have their own community for individuals who feel they have a connection to a p…

Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination with the Afterlife

By Lisa Miller

…thing like sleep, some say it’s something like heaven). At the end of the world you rejoin your body and live with God on a renewed Earth, which Muslims call “Paradise” and Jews call “The world to come.” But in the modern, post-enlightenment West, this multi-phase process has become too intellectually cumbersome, and we’ve abandoned it—especially in progressive circles. Third, that “heaven is what you want it to be.” For most of Western history, h…

Top Five (Less Sensational, But More Dangerous) Things to Remember About Pat Robertson (1930-2023)

By Mark Hulsether

…c screed and neo-conservative allies yawn. Robertson’s 1991 book, The New World Order, recycled anti-Semitic conspiracy theories reminiscent of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and stated that George Bush Sr. was part of a conspiracy to institute “an occult-inspired world socialist dictatorship” (through his work with the United Nations in the first Gulf War). This caused few of Robertson’s neoconservative allies to break with him in any decisi…

Haiti and the Push for Theological Questions

By Paula M. Cooey

…ciless, satirical attack on German philosopher Leibniz’s notion that this world is the best possible world that God could have created, given that God is, after all, both benevolent and all powerful. The central figure Candide, a naïf of the first order, challenges theodicy with the ironclad logic of a child as he proceeds through an adolescent life riddled by personal disaster. Given human suffering (particularly from natural disaster, and partic…

Aasif Mandvi on Islamophobia, Acting, and the Long Shadow of Jon Stewart

By Haroon Moghul

…out? Anything to make a social impact?” I had been on the Daily Show for a number of years at this point, and spoken to a lot of Islamophobes, people who had a lot of misinformation about Islam and Muslims. It was a personal thing to me, and it was an issue I thought I could lend my voice to in a satirical space. Were there any particular misconceptions or fears you wanted to address? There was a lot of stuff about Shari’ah Law, the protests again…

Another Manufactured Outrage: Rep. Ilhan Omar Did Nothing Wrong in Listing Hamas, Israel, and U.S. Together

By Joshua Shanes

…er King Jr. who called America, “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” Of course, he was also called an anti-American domestic enemy for doing so. I saw many people laugh at Hamas’s complaint about being compared to America, and while America is a democracy and Hamas is a terrorist organization, Americans might consider our own history. The shock of Trump praising Putin in 2017 and defending himself saying “You think [America] is…

The 17th Century Roots of Roy Moore’s Refusal to Concede the Election

By Karen E. Park

…clear violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment and any number of Supreme Court cases. He was removed again last year for refusing to uphold federal law on same sex marriage, on the grounds that it was in violation of God’s law as found in the Old Testament. Like Winthrop, Moore believes that the Old Testament should order American society, whether Exodus or Leviticus. The ancient Israelites in these societies either adhered, or…