There is no worse cultural appropriator than the Catholic. It’s as if she’s never even been on Tumblr. She prays on rosary-beads (Italian appropriations of the Eastern European chotki, which is, arguably, a North African appropriation of the Hindu prayer rope). She regularly participates — without paying a modicum of lip-service to being an imperialist pig — in Filipino devotions. She worships before Mexican icons — which include symbolism rudely appropriated from the Aztecs. She hangs out with monks who appropriate... Read more

Respect for other beliefs, tolerance of other religions, acceptance of other cultures — these doctrines are usually sugar-sweet forms of violence. This seems to me the only adequate explanation as to why our age is simultaneously respectful and racist; liberal and segregated; proud of diversity and incapable of actually enjoying diverse company outside of mandatorily diverse institutions — a schizophrenic personality that imagines itself open to the Other in all her differences while fearing, more than most things, any actual contact... Read more

We strike a man’s face when we can no longer strike his heart. We put bullets in the minds we cannot change. Violence begins where argument fails, and the fact that liberal governments can only meet ISIS’s terrorist attacks with bombing campaigns indicates that the two entities stand across an absolute impasse over which no dialogue, discourse, or insult can reach. ISIS and liberal democracies hold radically opposed theologies. They believe incompatible doctrines of the Divine. Only by understanding this theological rift will... Read more