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For many Americans, the Muslim world is dangerous. It is a place mired in the thick sludge of the past, peopled by exotic and prickly foreigners who, at any slight however real or perceived, fly off into a mad rage. It is irrationality’s last refuge, a museum shop of medieval horrors that has somehow survived the rest of the planet’s transition to the 21st century. Recent events might seem to only confirm this assessment. A fair-minded observer might plausibly ask, “Are Muslims nuts?” Although, to be entirely fair-minded, for the thousands who did protest against “The Innocence of Muslims,” well over a billion and a half did not.

Why don’t we hear about nonviolence from the pulpit? There is a complex theology behind the Gospel message of activist, transformative nonviolence that is easy for a homilist to set aside in favor of “God-loves-you!” Sunday messages that demand little from believers beyond robust self-esteem and a vague acceptance of God’s expectation that we generally do right by others. Thus, dusted off during Lent and the Easter season, the premodern language of sin, suffering, sacrifice, and salvation, as Marcus Borg has argued and Pew researchers have tracked, are poorly understood by Christians themselves.

There’s been a lot of talk in the American atheist movement about social justice, but why doesn’t it include justice for religious minorities like Muslims and Sikhs?

Philosopher Simon Critchley on evangelical atheists, the ‘supreme fiction’ in politics or love, and why the debate over whether you believe in a god is massively irrelevant.

How did Rick Santorum roll over Mitt Romney in all those primary states? Where did the energy come from? While pundits still insist that he won’t topple the moneyed Mitt—whose campaign still generates about as much excitement as the winter sport of curling—Santorum is holding onto the spotlight long enough to put religious populism front and center.

Most insiders to this world are privy to the open secret of gospel’s deep reliance on the contributions and influence of gay men and women. But Heilbut opens wide the closet doors and peers in with the bright light of righteous outrage for the plight of the children in an increasingly homophobic religious culture, while also bringing a deeply felt sensitivity for the stories of the children and their musical sensibility. As he writes: “It is impossible to understand the story of black America without foregrounding the experiences of the gay men of gospel.”

Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood, starring “Best Actor” Daniel Day-Lewis, operates as the creation myth of an imperialist America.

Liberalism has many strengths. It brought God into the world. It allowed us to value the natural order and value human intellect as a way of thinking theologically. But, liberalism is a philosophy of history as progress and harmony—and that’s untrue to the nature of the Fall. Why I use the term “progressivism” instead is that progressivism is movement-based. Progressives are more communitarian, they’re not as individualistic; they have a far savvier sense that history is struggle, and that the world does not want to be changed.

The Lambs of Christ founder’s lifetime example of “nonviolent” protest is now being invoked by the Catholic Bishops, according to the Thomas More Society. But for abortion providers Weslin’s nonviolence is just violence by another name.

No giant earthquake rippled across the surface of the earth but I wanted to know what happens next. If you’re absolutely sure the world is going to end on a specific day, and it doesn’t, what do you do? How do you explain it to yourself? What happens to your faith in God?