Jerusalem as a Place of Desire and Death, at the Metropolitan Museum: Medieval Jerusalem was a busy market town at the nexus of trade routes. From combat to shopping, this show offers 200 objects from 60 international collections, a few spectacular but most fragile, everyday, and ordinary. If “next year, Jerusalem,” perhaps this year, the Met.
Converting Churches to Condos Brings Logistical, Social Challenges: As congregations move to the suburbs and property values soar, increasing numbers of religious institutions are selling their properties in the city. Some of the churches are demolished, but those with architectural merit are often adapted by developers for new uses, usually residential.
Religion and Resistance at the New National Museum of African-American History and Culture: An interview with the chief curator about the goals of the center and the narrative of religion, race and resistance. Included in the collection are Nat Turner’s Bible, Harriet Tubman’s hymnal and antique pews from AME churches.
Gay Student Sues Catholic High School That Barred His Bringing Same-Sex Date To Homecoming: A former student at Memphis, TN, Christian Brothers High School filed suit seeking $1 million in damages, alleging that the Catholic boy’s school– which receives federal funds– violated Title IX when it prohibited him from bringing his same-sex date from another school […]
Research Fraud: the Temptation to Lie — Most scientists and medical researchers behave ethically. However, in recent years, the number of high-profile scandals in which researchers have been exposed as having falsified their data raises the issue of how we should deal with research fraud. We need to start to look more deeply into who engages in […]
Whose Utopia Is This Anyway? — This medium-length article can introduce students to themes related to Utopian colonies of the past and present with attention to beliefs about the perfectibility of humankind,feminism, the nature of family, a biblical anthropology, and overlaps with the church. “To understand Utopian experiments—what worked for their participants and, more crucially, […]
The factors driving the growth of religious ‘nones’ in the U.S. — While it appears the U.S. is becoming less religious, some contend that’s not necessarily the case. Instead, the growth of the “nones” may simply indicate that people who are not religious are becoming more willing to say they have no religious affiliation. Do survey data support […]
Religious Accommodation, Religious Tradition, and Political Polarization: (one free download) What happens when a liberal democracy loses its common source or sources for its existential convictions and its raison d’tre? The practice of religious accommodation from government agencies now generate difficulties that aggravate the political polarization they were intended to reduce. This essay focuses on […]
Brief of Amici Curiae Former Justice Department Officials in Support of Petitioners: (one free download) The argument here is that if a party sincerely holds moral objections to conduct compelled by civil authorities, this looks a lot like the legal doctrine of criminal complicity (facilitating a scheme to some, even slight, degree with knowledge of […]
This essay with four responses from Mosaic examines several trends and issues in the current factional disputes over religious liberty in the courts, the schools, and the secularized culture of America.
