Beyond Belief

The intersection of religion and whatever "modernity" happens to be at any given moment takes unpredictable forms—an example of that blend of parasitism and symbiosis known as co-evolution. Sometimes modernity and religion take eons to come to terms with each other (and, of course, often they never do).

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts only recently cleared five of the victims of the Salem witch trials, which were held in 1692. It took a great investment of Talmudic energy to adapt telephones, elevators, and other devices to the demands of sabbath observance. Catholic theologians have come to terms with the reality of sex-change operations, though they recently decided that the sex of the soul remains unaltered. (This finding is presumably designed to prevent a rash of surgical transformations by women who want to be priests.) On occasion, however, a modus vivendi is worked out in a natural and satisfying way. One magazine ...