A conversation with Julius Krein The post On the Use and Abuse of Christianity for Life first appeared on ARC: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera.| ARC: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera
The most successful social movements sustain themselves in part because they’re fun. The activist push in the LGBTQIA+ community that began with the Stonewall riots in 1969 and proceeded through the AIDS epidemic and the legalization of same-sex marriage went hand in hand with an outpouring of culture. William S. Burroughs novels and Stone Butch| ARC: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera
In the wake of George Washington’s death, Congress struggled not over whether to honor him but how. An excerpt from a new book shows how the answer shaped the future of the country. The post Where to Bury the Father first appeared on ARC: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera.| ARC: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera
On July 8, 2025, Alberto Rojas, the Bishop of San Bernardino, offered a dispensation to faithful in his diocese from the holy Catholic obligation of attending Mass. This dispensation extends to those who have genuine fear of immigration enforcement actions. This document is the first dispensation for reasons of immigration enforcement in U.S. history. The| ARC: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera
I grew up in suburban Philadelphia, within walking distance of two synagogues, one Reform and the other (my family’s) Conservative, housed in a concrete and glass temple that was one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s final projects. Normative Judaism had, at best, an anodyne effect on this bookish boy in the late 1950s. A four-hour service| ARC: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera
For decades, the Johnson Amendment has barred pastors from preaching politics. The Trump administration just got rid of it. The post The IRS Amens Political Endorsements from the Pulpit first appeared on ARC: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera.| ARC: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera
Myths are born, they serve a purpose, and they die. When we reside inside them, we swear by them, we invest in them, we think they precede us, and we think they will survive us. They define us, and they alienate us. Myths provide vehicles of meaning, sources of hope, and ways to make sense| ARC: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera
A conversation with Gabriela Nguyen about leaving social media for good The post Living a Life of Appstinence first appeared on ARC: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera.| ARC: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera
Historian Thomas A. Tweed proposes an environmental approach to the study of American religion The post Religion in the Lands That Became America first appeared on ARC: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera.| ARC: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera
A new book charts the rise and fall—and perhaps disappearance—of Catholic confession The post How Many Hail Marys for a Lost Sacrament? first appeared on ARC: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera.| ARC: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera
A decade after Pope Francis issued a substantive call to caring for the environment, little has changed The post Where is the Catholic Church on Climate Change? first appeared on ARC: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera.| ARC: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera
What I call the cowboy apocalypse is a fictional trope, seen in movies, video games, and other media. It is drawn from a dark fantasy of the American frontier blended with a desire for return to that frontier environment after an apocalyptic transformation. In the cowboy apocalypse, America’s frontier past is idealized, depicting white gun-toting| ARC: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera
The dizzying Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) news cycle may seem to many like the distant past, but the slimming down of the federal government continues. Two separate initiatives—an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education, and the Defense Department cancelling millions of dollars in contracts—are still causing aftershocks across the country, even—or perhaps| ARC: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera
Neil Rudenstine was born in 1935 and grew up in Danbury, Connecticut. His father was a Ukrainian Jewish immigrant who became a prison guard; his mother was the daughter of Italian immigrants. He attended Princeton, became a scholar of Renaissance literature, and served as president of Harvard University from 1991 to 2001. His new book,| ARC: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera
In a campaign mailer designed by a PAC supporting disgraced former New York governor and current mayoral hopeful Andrew Cuomo, Queens assembly member Zohran Mamdani’s image appears with his beard digitally altered to look longer, fuller, and darker. This manipulation invokes tired Islamophobic tropes that cast bearded brown Muslim men as dangerous, violent, and in| ARC: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera
Louise Joy Brown, the first child conceived by in vitro fertilization (IVF), was born in 1978. Since then, ethicists, theologians, and activists have expressed religiously-based objections to the practice of IVF, notwithstanding the joy it has brought to countless families. In this essay, I wish to survey the whole range of these objections and offer| ARC: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera
Jeffrey Kripal is one of our most fascinating scholars of religious studies. For thirty years, he has combined rigorous, even obsessive, readings of religious texts with expansive philosophical and theoretical capacity; he works both small and big. But he has also courted controversy. In the first phase of his career, Kripal’s work on eroticism and| ARC: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera
Since its founding, Israel’s effort to define Jewish status—codified in the Law of Return, which determines eligibility for Israeli citizenship—has had profound consequences for Jews inside and outside its borders, making it a reliable pain point between Israel and American Jewry decade after decade. Perhaps one of the most emotional episodes in the ongoing drama| ARC: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera
