Secular modernity is marked by a persistent project of separating the modern body from its waste, masking excremental operations, and thus producing a fantasy of a fully bounded body and subject. The…
Producers, actors, politicians, businessmen, and professors: acclaimed men in these professions have recently been exposed as perpetrators of sexual violence. Powerful men abuse their power, and women are often the victims. Power…
Steeped in the Reformation’s emphasis on the individual as an autonomous agent, the Founders displaced God in favor of a legal scaffolding for a freedom that, in practice and theory, depended upon…
Religion is not an explanation for what happened in Tennessee that weekend. Religion in general is never an explanation—except for atheists and secularists. There is no referent for the word religion. We…
Instead of separation of state and religion, Al drew on the history of established religions in Europe to advocate the “twin tolerations”: a form of mutual toleration between religion and state wherein…
Six short reflections contribute to an ongoing conversation about the value of history to any analysis of secularism, religion, and the interactions between the two.
"There were hopes after the collapse of the Soviet Union that this sort of religion would never re-emerge, at least in the civilized world. It seems, however, these hopes were premature. Political…
I am a comparative historian of early Christianity who reads widely in and engages in academic forums around new religious movements and popular and local religious forms, both contemporary and ancient. I…
It is a widely held view that the juridical and political management of religion should be grounded in fundamental normative truth. Catholic communitarian and natural law doctrines are among the more evidently…
Does it make a difference to think of ritual language such as prayer in terms of a relation between practice and performance? I do not mean this in the sense that a…
