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Jesus Wasn’t a “GodKlingon”; The Problem with Biblical Literalists

By Hollis Phelps

…nce of extraterrestrial life within the next twenty years. Ham bemoans the search for extraterrestrial life as “desperate and fruitless,” and a waste of “countless hundreds of millions of dollars,” though his problem isn’t that we should be spending that money on other things of importance. Ham’s objections are theological: Life did not evolve but was specially created by God, as Genesis clearly teaches. Christians certainly shouldn’t expect alien…

Alex Jones, Performance Artist, and the Duelling Meanings of ‘Sincerity’ in Politics and Public Life

By Spencer Dew

…h as he was a manifestation of it. He urged his audience to do their own research, to discover the truth for themselves, while insisting that much of what we think we know, and most of what we’re told by the mainstream media, is a sham. Jones—as persona or person, as character-actor or journalist, as you like—speaks from a location of sincerity. His exaggerated emotionality loses no force if it’s seen as a theatrical device. His claims—to challeng…

Tearing Down Evangelical Icons: Why Penn’s Decision to Remove George Whitefield Statue May Be Good for American Evangelicalism

By Peter Y. Choi

…the evangelical movement in America. When I was a graduate student doing research in Savannah, the unexpected juxtaposition of Wesley’s statue and Whitefield’s gazebo served as a sobering reminder of the twists of historical memory. It’s a complicated matter to memorialize people and movements. If Whitefield’s admirers were disappointed with the Savannah gazebo, they did get a statue of their hero at the University of Pennsylvania. After an early…

Douthat, Do Tell! Some Questions for a Columnist Longing for the Good Old Days of American Religion

By Peter Laarman

…n the old Protestant consensus cracked up, the American system has been in search of a form of religion that can ground its liberalism in something like that [old] way. I call your attention to the introduction of the term “American system”: do we hear something just a tad bit proprietary? The legend of the Virtuous Republic has been invoked, the American system is what renews and guarantees the virtue, but that system is now malfunctioning on acc…

A Reader Writes: I’m Not Personally LGBTQ Affirming, But I Recognize That Difference is Good — So Can’t We Coexist Amicably?

By Chrissy Stroop

…cher Jim Deferio, whose hate-fueled exploits you can corroborate via a web search for further sources. Be warned, however, that the interview makes for disturbing reading. There is also further documentation of the street preaching phenomenon available on my website. In any case, if I’ve understood you correctly, then you’re already far better at practicing pluralism and coexistence than most people, at least in the American context, who share wha…

Hajj Journal: Part of the Process

By Amina Wadud

…ny, then, like hijabi and niqabi girls trying to be less nerdy (stereotype number one) and go off to an important college sports event (stereotype two) in search of a place to pray at halftime which they were reasonably confident was not wet with vomit, pee, or the rain. No, it really did have some funny parts. But it was just that all the college girls were too squeaky-clean—all advanced-placement honor students from middle class suburban familie…

Did Romney Cynically Cite His Mormon Faith for Impeachment Vote as Critics Claim?

By Daniel Schultz

…he said, he was guided by his father’s favorite verse of Mormon scripture: Search diligently, pray always, and be believing, and all things shall work together for your good. “I have gone through a process of very thorough analysis and searching, and I have prayed through this process,” he told me. “But I don’t pretend that God told me what to do.” …Romney’s decisive break with Trump could end up hurting him even in Utah, a red state where the pre…

Women Worshipers Banned From Shi’a Shrine

By Fatemeh Fakhraie

…. Since female members of Iraqi security teams are low, there is no one to search female pilgrims, who may cause potential security threats because their clothing is loose and could conceal weapons or bombs. Despite the lack of security, the al-Kadhim shrine is the only shrine to be closed to women during the Ashura festivals. While I understand the worry about security, closing the shrine to women disenfranchises women from their right to worship…

Papal Profanity: The Vatican’s Pagan Museum

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…vate. And along the way Art detached from Religion. So we go to museums in search of a very modern muse—for illumination, spiritual awakening, visual epiphanies. Museums enact the distinctively modern quest for the sacred, which is not quite the same thing as religion. Who is your audience? Students and colleagues in Art History, Classics, Modern Greek Studies and Comparative Religion, of course, but really anybody who’s reading this now, I ho…

Monstrous Futures: Dungeons & Dragons, Harbinger of the “None” Generation, Turns 40

By Robert M. Geraci

…for a moment and take up residence online, joining millions of others in a search for the sublime reality that can be only momentarily captured in a book of monsters, which is always and ever a book of miracles. The dreams we realize in movies, virtual realities, and videogames are the dreams we have always dreamed; the monsters we find there are the monsters we cherish, for it is their presence that reminds us of what matters. Or, better, it’s th…