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Recent analyses of religion in the 99% Movement tend to begin with a focus simply on pluralism, asking how diverse forms of religious transcendence—particularly in justice-minded congregations—have aligned themselves with the still-growing wave of Occupations. But the intimacy of life in a park or along a sidewalk is causing traditions to do something more than “coexist” plurally. Religions are colluding and combining.

Harold Camping admits he was wrong, but only in the most technical way. He wasn’t really wrong, he is saying, because he trusts God, and was just passing God’s false prophecy along. It’s not that he’s wrong, that’s not the point, and not that he’s sorry. This, Camping says, is just “how God brings His messages to mankind.” Apology and repentance this is not.

Left or Right, the market always seems to win. This is actually where I would locate the greater threat to Arab democracy, and the temptation to slide into some form of authoritarianism, older or newer. As the people of the region confront the reality that they have little say over economic policy, and will be forced to accede to the contingencies of global capitalism, they may well become immensely frustrated by the scale of change and demand something different. Considering how volatile European and American politics have become, and how frequently we now see street protests and even supposedly stable and demure countries, how much more so these new democracies?

Why are the US Catholic Bishops exerting so much energy and money and time on the matter of contraception, with no similarly public cries of outrage against the death penalty, state-sponsored torture, or the two preemptive wars in which the US has involved itself for fully a decade?

Scott Lively once said he dropped “a nuclear bomb against the gay agenda in Uganda.”

It’s more complicated than you think.

Conversion, magic, flogging, the New Third World, Muslim philosophy, Malcolm. Compelling reading, in any year.

While a valiant effort at a compassionate depiction of individuals swept up in the horror of the Bosnian Genocide, Angelina Jolie’s main character, Danijel, simply ends up humanizing genocide.

In The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, religious violence is supposed to be resisted, but it’s also violence that the audience is being asked to look at. Over and over and over again.

While president Bashir has remained clear about his vision of Islamic nationalism, the conflict can’t be reduced to Muslim persecution of Christians. The broad struggle is of state-sponsored Arabist Islamic nationalism against racial and religious pluralism.