In a talk April 6 at Boston College, Mark Silk argued that the past decade has seen the development of a new kind of libertarianism alongside of economic, civil, and moral libertarianism. He called it “spiritual libertarianism,” and saw evidence of it in recent state efforts to pass strict new version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
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For the last several decades, the United States looked like an outlier among industrial nations in the North Atlantic West, remaining a robustly religious country while its European peers moved into ever deeper secularization. But the recent trajectory of decline among those holding liberal religious beliefs strongly suggests that the long-term trend in the United States is toward pervasive secularism on the European model as well, the intellectual historian David A. Hollinger told audiences at Trinity College in Hartford this week.
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Twenty percent of the adult American population now say they have no religion. Call them unaffiliated or call them
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Driscoll founded Mars Hill in 1995 and quickly made it into one of the largest churches in the nation. His charismatic preaching style resembled that of other megachurch ministers, but his gritty aesthetic, hard-edged Calvinism, and penchant for controversy made him stand out. As Mars Hill grew, he attracted attention from the New York Times Magazine and Time. And whenever he preached something controversial, which he did regularly, the videos went viral.
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At a lunchtime forum on free speech and blasphemy in the Trinity chapel February 5, a mostly student audience was told there would be a vote to determine whether to display some of the cartoons that provoked the attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris. Three faculty panelists then proceeded to explore the relevant legal, Islamic, and journalistic issues.
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Watching the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints struggle to control its public image has been a study in the difficulty of maintaining orthodoxy in the age of instant communication. When podcaster John Dehlin was excommunicated earlier this week for apostasy – his offenses included “spreading” his dissenting views “widely via the Internet” despite orders to stop – he announced the decision on a radio show, and posted the letter explaining the reasoning behind his ouster on his Mormon Stories website.
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by Fiona Brennan For the past five Octobers, the city of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, has given one of its
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Speaking with reporters in December of 1993, President Clinton criticized the news media for paying little attention to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which he had signed into law the previous month. The law, he said, “affected the lives of people in a profound way.”
Read moreIn the global narrative of how democracy springs eternal and ultimately vanquishes the forces of oppression, the dissolution of the Burmese military junta in 2011 told of a people’s capacity to enshrine the principles of universal human rights and tolerance in a pluralistic nation.
Read moreIn the early months of this year, tens of thousands of unaccompanied Central American children poured over the U.S. border, creating a new crisis in the ongoing and polarized debate over immigration reform.
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