Garret Keizer

Yes, your colleagues would laugh if you went out to protest. Marie Antoinette laughed too, until she found herself smiling up from the bottom of a wicker basket.

Mary Magdalene has been the object of endless projection, one fantasy after another luridly tattooed on the screen of her flesh. That some of these projections are in fact feminist projections only confirms her status as a saint for our times. Mary of Magdala is Mary of Irony, too.

When I was told that Christopher Hitchens has been diagnosed with cancer and that this has sparked a discussion about whether people ought to pray for him, my first reaction was a stupefying bewilderment. I can’t say that I’ve entirely recovered.