Anorexic Republicans, Starving Our Body Politic

From Eric L. Santner’s essay “The New Idolatry: Religious Thnking in the Un-Commonwealth of America,” currently posted at The Chicago Blog:

…one might think about the similarities between the attitude of Republicans to taxes and that of anorexics to food. For both, less is always better, and nothing would be best of all. Republicans have a “taxation disorder” just as anorexics have an eating disorder. Both groups treat what is essentially a practical matter—how much money is needed by the state given the current needs of the country and its people; how much food is needed given the demands of the body—as a matter of a quasi-sacred ethical stance concerning the purity of the body. In both cases, we find a demand for “starving the beast,” a personal or collective body felt to be disgustingly fleshy, to be always too much, to be in need of ever greater reduction, thinning, cutting, fasting. In both disorders we find a deeply pathological form of what Max Weber characterized as the “spirit of capitalism,” a fundamentally this-worldly asceticism fueled by a religious sense of duty and obligation aimed at assuring our place among the divinely elected.

(h/t Elizabeth Castelli) Continue Reading →

Abbey Sweet Abbey

Mary Valle: Via Elizabeth Castelli, here’s a look at a mostly-gutted, vacant and ready-for-finishin’ disused Anglican convent. Apparently this gem of a building is to be turned into “luxury condos” — which is good because it will keep the abbey standing, but is bad because, you know. Condos. Nothing against condos. I think I’d rather just call them apartments. The word “condo” just makes me think of divorced dads and widows and/or slightly sordid vacation rentals in sunny or snowy locations. The word “condo” just makes me think that, even though they are apparently keeping the original staircase, it’s going to be all wall-to-wall and mirrored closet doors and barstools. And what will become of the ailing nuns’ chapel?

Clearly, I should purchase this property and make it into my dream home — fully restored as an abbey. Continue Reading →

Failure to Deliver: Predictions that did not predict and a case-closing report that did not close the case

Part of The Revealer’s series on the John Jay report, The Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010.

by Elizabeth Castelli

Last week, two things did not happen.  The Rapture did not take place on May 21, 2011, despite the fervent prognostications of a retired engineer-turned-Christian broadcaster and biblical numerologist.  Meanwhile, the sex abuse scandal that has mired the Catholic Church in litigation and shame for nearly three decades was not resolved nor even really explained, despite the earnest efforts of the number-crunching social scientists at the John Jay College for Criminal Justice, City University of New York.  The coincidence of these two non-happenings was more than a matter of the calendar.

For one thing, both efforts emerged out of a belief that interpreting numbers produces a useable narrative that has an explanatory power.  Under the logic of this belief, the truth is but a matter of simple ciphering—whether Rapture predictions predicated on a series of simple arithmetic calculations or the purported causes of the abuse scandal in the Catholic church carefully measured, calculated, and charted with a soul-numbing statistical precision.  For another, both non-events strove to package up unruly temporality with certainty and finality. In the case of Judgment Day-proclaiming Harold Camping and his Family Radio broadcasts, the focus was on the future, while the John Jay College researchers proclaimed the sexual abuse of minors by priests “a historical problem,” a thing of the past. Continue Reading →

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A round-up of recent religion news. Continue Reading →

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God and Guns

Patrick Blanchfield tracks the long-standing entanglement of guns and religion in the United States. Part 1 of 2. Continue Reading →

In the News: Pundits, Prophets, Politics, and more!

A round-up of the week’s religion news. Continue Reading →