The religious are free, but not because they enjoy religious freedom. They are free insofar as all are free. In a liberal society, we all inhabit an equal space of personal and associative liberty in which to worship, blaspheme, or just fix our suppers.
Having now cracked down on U.S. nuns and the Girl Scouts the Catholic hierarchy is aiming to define womanhood. Problem is, both of those groups are held in far higher regard than the men at the helm of the crackdowns.
After some perfunctory praise of the last three popes, Boteach gets down to his Glenn Beck-ish business: “The American Evangelical community has proven the most stalwart and reliable friend of Israel in the United States.” Christians and Jews are now “brothers” because “together they confront the implacable foe of Islamist terrorism.”
Kate Bornstein’s new book recounts the years before Scientology was considered a religion, when it gave her all the answers on gender, loss, and addiction she needed not to hear. Sounds just like… bad religion.
Some people think that evangelicals only do charity out of a selfish desire to convert non-believers. Others insist that evangelical faith-based organizations are secretly installing a Christian theocracy. Both assumptions are misguided in my view because they are too narrow. Moral Ambition seeks to broaden (and refine) our sense of what everyday evangelicals believe they are doing, or would like to be doing, when they engage the public sphere.
The Weekly Standard’s Christopher Caldwell, who sees the integration of Muslims in Europe as troublesome, reviews two new books that see the integration of Muslims in Europe as troublesome.
