It seems that I suffer from a condition not yet included in the list of officially recognized psychiatric maladies: Manic Associational Syndrome (MAS). This is the irresistible urge to perceive things—like news items—as belonging together that are normally perceived as having little or nothing to do with each other. In the last few days MAS […]

A new book of mine has just been published: Adventures of an Accidental Sociologist: How to Explain the World Without Becoming a Bore (Prometheus Books). The American Interest is kind enough to sponsor a launch of the book in Washington DC on June 29, as previously noted on this blog. I have been told that it […]

I would like to inform the readers of this blog that there will be a lunchtime roundtable on the occasion of the release my new book, Adventures of an Accidental Sociologist: How to Explain the World Without Becoming a Bore, in Washington DC on June 29th. My friends E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post, Tom […]

In its issue of June 2011, Christianity Today, the banner publication of conservative Protestantism, carried a cover story about the latest wrinkle in the Evangelical struggle with the ghost of Darwin. The old fight over evolution is still continuing robustly, with fervent believers in a “young  earth” (a lovely phrase—meaning an earth some six-thousand years […]

The Roman Catholic Church is famous for its hospitality. Its arms are always wide open to receive converts or repentant schismatics, and it is ready to make all sorts of compromises to make them feel welcome. But there are limits to this accommodation. In its issue of May 27, 2011, the National Catholic Reporter published […]

I am going to say uncomplimentary things about some American realities. I would not want to be misunderstood. I love this country. I felt at home from the moment I arrived here when barely aged eighteen, and it was with a sense of great privilege that I became a citizen a few years later. I […]

The National Interest, a periodical known for a staunchly realist stance in international affairs, carried an article by Jacob Heilbrunn about Samantha Power in its May-June, 2011 issue. Power, who presently heads the Office of Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights in the National Security Council, has referred to herself as the “genocide chick”. TNI has […]

Robert (“Rob”) Bell is a prominent figure in the Evangelical world, an author and pastor. In 1999 he founded the Mars Hill Bible Church, in Grandville, Michigan, a very successful megachurch attended every Sunday by 8,000 to 10,000 worshippers. Earlier this year he published a book with the less than modest title Love Wins: A Book […]

On April 27, 2011, The New York Times carried a story about atheists campaigning to have their own chaplaincy in the American military. The campaign is led by an organization called Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers. Jason Torpy, its president (a former Army captain) identified the group’s faith as “humanism”. He stated the case […]

On April 23, 2011, The New York Times carried a story about the Embassy of God, a Pentecostal megachurch in, of all places, Kiev. I had known about this church before, but the Times story, in combination with other items about Ukraine that had come to my intention, made me reflect about it once more. […]