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The United States is still using the logic of vengeance in enforcing the death penalty, and it is the only Western country within its primary coalitions to do so. When did it start? How can it end? What is wrong with us?

Forget the standard litany of the best-selling books and most popular movies… This year’s list includes comics, rock bands, Battlestar Galactica, “Hava Nagila” sung to the tune of “The Twist,” and “I Am the Walrus” translated into Aramaic.

The president’s faith, according to John McCain, is “[the] number one issue.” Having scoured the public record, the author reports back with a startling proposal: John McCain may not believe in God.

Connecticut legalizes gay marriage; Religious voters favor Obama; Blame the Jews for Wall Street; Gay marriage ‘worse than radical Islam,’; McCain to Gays: Thanks, but no thanks.

I’m not arguing that Islamophobia is racist, or that Islamophobes are racists, because that’s not quite what’s happening. For one thing, Islamophobes embrace ex-Muslims like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and racists wouldn’t (indeed couldn’t) do the same. But consider the similarities: the Islamophobe must assume Muslims suffer some sort of pre-Islamic inferiority, sufficient to explain how some (largely non-white) people—actually, a lot of people—not only fell for Islam in the first place, but then stayed down. How long do enforced ideologies last? Nazism: twelve years. Communism: some decades. Islam: Fourteen centuries and counting.

Where Bush would sign something because anti-choice was his base, Perry actively instigates. A report from the frontlines of the kinder, gentler scorched-earth campaign against abortion and birth control in Texas.

Saturday’s surge of Occupy Wall Street-themed actions could be a turning point. There’s obviously more to be felt and said about this than any journalistic treatment could hope to engage; nonetheless, four RD contributors, moderated by Senior Editor Sarah Posner, shared their own thoughts about a movement that remains fluid and thrilling and quite literally indescribable.

While Jewish foodies frequently use “traditional cultures” to critique everything from the cruelty and impact of modern agribusiness, to the lack of pleasure and meaning we derive from our food, they flout their own tradition when it comes to eating pig meat to the detriment of their greater goals.

African-American people were taught Christianity in the context of oppression. When people are disempowered, they are often empowered at someone else’s expense, whether it’s women or children or gay people. How do we get through that?

RD contributor Daniel Schultz recently published his first book: Changing the Script, based in large part on the thought of Old Testament scholar and theologian, Walter Brueggeman. To mark the book release, we sent Pastor Dan to interview Brueggemann at his home in Cincinnati.