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Modernity’s Fraternity: What Dan Brown Gets Right

By Samuel Biagetti

…, science, artwork, and monuments in this novel are real.” As a student of Freemasonry, I can vouch that Brown’s claim is generally true. The strange rituals and traditions that the novel attributes to the Masons are all in fact practiced by some branch of Masonry. Dan Brown is able to work so comfortably with real Masonic symbols and lore because they resonate with his own sensibility. Not only do Brown and the Masons both love secrets and encode…

Beverly Cleary, Author of the Ramona Series, Understood Children, Shoes, School, Words, and How it Feels to be Heard, or Misunderstood

By Amy Laura Hall

…arted the third grade . . . Grown-ups did not understand that summers were free from grades.” She also catches grown-ups speaking earnest nonsense. Virginia Lee Burton’s 1939 classic Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel may be about, as her teacher tells her, “digging the basement of the town hall,” but Ramona knows that her pressing question, namely, “how did Mike Mulligan go to the bathroom when he was digging the basement of the town hall?” stand…

God’s Obituary: A Humanist Response to Mass Murder

By Anthony B. Pinn

…r in this world without cosmic aid that can protect us from us. Appeals to free will (as my comments are bound to generate) might not be a limitation God imposes on God’s self. It may simply be a weak way of saying we are in control, or what the late William R. Jones—philosopher of religion—called the “functional ultimacy” of human activity in the world. These profound moments of tragedy slowly kill God, making it so difficult, if not useless, to…

How Far Will White Christians Go to Maintain Power? An Interview with Robert Jones

By Peter Laarman

…hristians have merely been paying lip service to democratic principles and free elections, or whether they really believe in those principles and norms now that white Christians have become a demographic minority. This is all quite new—this reality of not being a majority white Christian country. We’ve gone from 54% white Christian to just 44% since Obama was first elected, or a drop of about 1% per year. Previous generations of white Christians h…

Global LGBT Recap: Religious Leaders Support Persecution as Countries Vie in Homophobia Olympics

By Peter Montgomery

…critical moment. Chissano ended his letter quoting Nelson Mandela: “To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” Russia: Putin Tells Gays to ‘Leave Kids Alone’ But Arrests Rainbow Flag-Waving Teen As the Olympics approach, the biggest concern of Russian officials may not be international opposition to the country’s anti-gay laws but the threat of terrorism related to on…

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

By Mark Hulsether

…ording to Robertson, they told Satan “we will serve you if you will get us free.” Satan then responded, “OK, it’s a deal” and “ever since, they have been cursed.” Is this worth acknowledging? Comments by Robertson that are racist, sexist, arrogant, complacent, misleading, and/or embarrassing are like a bus: if you miss one today, there will be another tomorrow. Those who stir the pot by writing “can you believe he said that!” do not always seem to…

The ‘Dreher Affair’ Highlights the Right’s International Networks

By Annika Brockschmidt

…ed by televangelist Pat Robertson. The Anti-LGBTQ group Alliance Defending Freedom has set up shop outside the US as well, dubbing its coordinating international body Alliance Defending Freedom International. The Polish Ordo Iuris, a right-wing catholic organization which leads a crusade against abortion, is likewise well connected on an international level with German pundit Birgit Kelle, a regular on the anti-abortion circuit, having recently sp…

Healed of the Sin of Religion: At Church with Sara Miles

By Lisa Webster

…when it comes to “doing good,” and about how to distribute eleven tons of free food in two and a half hours. __________________________________ Your first book was a memoir, the story of how you came to church for the first time, and stayed. But—and this might be because of your background as a journalist—you seem less interested in talking about yourself, and more about the context you found yourself in. Yes, to actually write about myself was n…

Dubious Diversity at America Mag

By Patricia Miller

…nsubstantiated claims such as “when you give money to groups that not only promote contraception but also promote abortion in an integrated way, you actually drive abortion rates up, not down.” Since 2000, Alvaré has taught law and brought her own brand of cherry-picked data tendentiously linked to the supposed dangers of abortion and contraception wrapped up as concern for women’s health and well-being to the Robert George/Witherspoon Institute/N…

Christians Should Give Up “Christianity”: An Interview with Peter Rollins

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…t has the full range of human emotions, that confronts us with our brokenness, but not so that we despair. That’s the good news of Christianity for me. It’s not that you can be happy and whole, but rather that life is crap and you don’t know the answers. It’s good news to be freed from the oppression that there’s something that’s going to make it all better. When you’re free from that and begin to work through your brokenness and suffering with a…