The Moral Significance of Modern Food

by John Kainer

The modern food system is essentially its own religious system, using a network of symbols and phrases to make moral claims and create its own sacred-profane distinction. Continue Reading »

25 Sep 2021

Letters

by Various

I read with much interest Bruce D. Marshall’s “No Liberal Home” (­August/September). I applaud his invocation of St. Augustine’s doctrine of the two cities, reminding us that our heavenly home is not identical to any earthly regime—even one as relatively welcoming as our liberal . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Nov 2019

Woke Totemism

by Alexander Riley

A year ago in April, a student group at the university where I teach invited Amy Wax, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, to speak on the topic of racial inequality. Days before the talk, the faculty email list exploded with vituperative attacks on Wax and on the student group . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Aug 2019

A Religion of Activism

by Alexander Riley

In 2002, in these pages, Peter Berger, the late American socio­logist, offered a succinct summary of the health and status of sociology. In Invitation to ­Sociology (1963), he had praised its promise. Two generations later, he offered a much more pessimistic picture. Now, a decade and a . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Apr 2019

The Good of Religious Pluralism

by Peter L. Berger

Pluralism is often perceived as a threat to faith, associated with relativism and a loss of religious substance. I take a contrary position. It seems to me that pluralism is good for faith. For several years now, my work as a sociologist has circled around the phenomenon of pluralism. The result of . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Apr 2016

Human Unity Real and Imagined

by Pierre Manent

Every epoch has its secular religion, a perverse imitation of Christianity that takes part of the Christian proposition and diverts it toward this world. It was not so long ago that communism transformed charity for the poor into hatred for capitalist society and ultimately for every society that . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Oct 2012