Justin Katz
This leaves me with nothing to say, except to hope that it’s a fluke, not an indication of trends: STATE SEN. Marian Walsh (D.-Dedham) has filed legislation requiring churches in Massachusetts to submit annual reports to the state detailing their collections, expenditures, funds on hand, investments, real-estate holdings, etc. The proposed law would apply to…
My latest column, “Life in an Unfinished World,” takes up the evolution v. intelligent design dispute. The religious-like fervor of those who oppose intelligent design raises the question of whether they think any aspects of society rightly impinge on science. Contrary to frequent insistence that intelligent design be taught — if at all — in…
For my column — which will now be appearing every other Wednesday — I pondered the formation of London’s homegrown Muslim terrorists: “Exploding Across Arm’s-Length Tolerance.” The bottom line is that the common thread that runs through the astute explanations — the root cause, if you will — is disengagement. And pushing religion, and the…
It’s saddening to admit that I finished reading Minette Marrin’s “Confronted with our own decadence,” in the London Times, with a mordant smirk. I recall, just about four years ago, having the very thought with which she ends: Despite all this, I do, now for the first time, feel a faint glimmer of optimism. One…
“Breaking the Glass Taboo,” my latest column for TheFactIs.org, responds to Providence Journal editorialist M.J. Anderson’s nostalgia for the days of the Baby Boomers’ youth and to recent research finding that removing men from the home can be part of a recipe for creating “exceptional” boys. I didn’t go into this in my column, but…
A debatable comment from the Providence Journal’s editorial about the London bombings: Thursday’s attacks seemed clearly timed to coincide with the opening of the G-8 summit meeting in Scotland, where efforts to help Africa (home of almost 350 million Muslims) have been high on the agenda. Quite a gulf between that and Islamic terrorists’ agenda…
My latest column for TheFactIs.org — “Reasoning with the Id” — responds to a recent piece by Lee Harris. To summarize too drastically, Harris seeks to find a place for tradition in a world of reason. Me, I think is more accurate to stress that rationality already exists in a world of tradition.
My latest column, “Juggling Spheres in the Marriage Debate,” begins with activists’ invasion of Notre Dame Cathedral and makes its way to suggestions for resolving the current impasse in the same-sex marriage battle.
One can just about picture the commercial that RI Supreme Court Chief Justice Frank Williams would release to correspond with his recent presentation to the RI Bar Association, “Killing Justice: The Judiciary Under Siege.” It would begin in black and white, with dark footage and creepy music: “Political pressure and agenda-driven criticism also fray the…
After the twelfth of the twenty-four episodes of Lost’s first season, religious viewers thought they’d taken another step toward inclusion in mainstream culture, as represented by television and film. (Or at least one religious viewer did.) Lost treated religion seriously — acknowledging it as part of the society in which we live. Without a tone…