"If something wasn't happening, why do so many intelligent, well-educated professionals believe it is?" Lanning says. "Regardless of intelligence and education, and often despite common sense and evidence to the contrary, adults tend to believe what they want or need to believe; the greater the need, the greater the tendency. There was a need to believe." Read more
The "Jade Helm" military training exercise ends without anything like any of the right-wing conspiracy theories about it coming true, thereby confirming those theories for the right wing and ensuring that the name Jade Helm will live on, like Whitewater and Benghazi, in the endlessly invoked litany of non-existent proofs of liberal nefariousness. Also: Ranking holiness; glib and woolly moralizing; the arrest of a gamergater; and the Worst Movie Break-In of All Time. Read more
Some good news from Lancaster County -- or, if you're Republican candidate Ben Carson, evidence of insidious "political correctness" in Amish country. Plus: A nickname for the ages; farewell to Rick Perry; Cardinal Burke and Homeland Security; Countee Cullen; and how a theologian gets more interesting when he stops needing to satisfy people who can never be satisfied. Read more
Duncan Black and Juan Cole on humanitarian bombs and the refugees they create. Shaun King on his daily encounters with Christians. Imani Gandy on the racist lies about Margaret Sanger told by those trying to convince themselves they're being anti-racist. And the amazing Dr. Hawa Abdi, in her own voice. Read more
"I struck you and all the products of your toil with blight and mildew and hail; yet you did not return to me, says the Lord." Read more
“You’re doing a lot to help the refugees,” one woman asked. “What are you doing to protect our Christian values?” That is an amazing question -- almost eloquent in its obtuse blasphemy. Over here, in one distinct category, is this matter of helping refugees. And then, way over here, is a wholly separate and distinct category of "our Christian values." Read more
Sadly, new and better photos from Ceres reveal that its strange white spots are probably not sunlight reflected off the wreckage of an alien spacecraft. But we do have proof of one spacecraft now in the vicinity of that asteroid. Also: No reason to watch season two of "True Detective" when you can just watch "Terriers" instead; Mike Huckabee's strange understanding of history gets even stranger; Muggletonians; and see you in the funny papers. Read more
"It wasn't simply Raymie's age and innocence that had allowed his mother's influence to affect him so. It was his spirit. He didn't have the killer instinct, the 'me first' attitude Rayford thought he would need to succeed in the real world. He wasn't effeminate, but Rayford had worried that he might be a mama's boy -- too compassionate, too sensitive, too caring. ..." Read more
This quality of being literally priceless -- of being beyond the realm of sale -- is a recognizable concept and, as such, it requires a term, a word that allows us to refer to it. Language finds words for things. Here is a thing that requires a word. If Wendell Berry's word -- "sacred" -- will not do, then what word should we be using? Read more
"Sacred" does not mean that something "is beyond question." It means that something is beyond price. To say that nothing is "sacred," then, is to say that everything is for sale. This is not just a deeply cynical thing to say about the world, but a bitterly cynical thing to say about oneself. Read more
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In