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Everything You Think You Know About the Dark Ages is Wrong

…He devised an abacus, or counting board, that mimics the algorithms we use today for adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing. It has been called the first counting device in Europe to function digitally—even the first computer. In a chronology of computer history, Gerbert’s abacus is one of only four innovations mentioned between 3000 BC and the invention of the slide rule in 1622.   Like a modern scientist, Gerbert questioned authority. He…

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Gay Marriage Opponents Running on Empty

…2010 has drawn tens of people at each stop, including one in Indianapolis today. Courage Campaign staffers who attended today’s rally reported: “I have hand-counted 29 non-NOM staffers attending the rally—about the same number that have attended every other event on this tour.” They were outnumbered by those who came in support of marriage equality. … about 95 marriage equality supporters marched in to the event to counter-protest NOM on a sidewa…

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Why The Book of Mormon (the Musical) is Awesomely Lame

…xt—proof of Smith’s prophetic powers—was more important than its contents. Today, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints emphasizes scripture reading more than ever; but even now, Mormonism is not primarily about the Book of Mormon. This sacred text would indeed be a strange foundation for a religion. It’s a convoluted, quasi-historical chronology of prehistoric America, a narrative summary of men with arcane names (fathers, warriors, gen…

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Fight the Power: How to Read, and Re-Read, the Book of Revelation

…il power embodied in the great beast. But other Christians have said to me today, “Well, this book is a prophesy against empire and it shouldn’t be appropriated by the powers that be.” This book is a book of rebellion. It’s a book of challenge to the people in power, and that is the way it has been understood in very powerful movements in this country. If we were going to reinterpret this text today, if Christianity is in the American sense, in th…

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Statement on NAR & Christian Nationalism Answers Few Questions But Exposes Growing Rifts in the Movement

…ttera himself has been a central figure in creating the Christian Right of today. He was one of 150 signers of the Manhattan Declaration in 2009, along with other evangelical leaders, Christian Right activists, 50 sitting prelates of the Roman Catholic Church and a few Orthodox and Mormons. This manifesto established a three-point common political agenda for the Christian Right: “Life, Marriage, and Religious Liberty.” Mattera also served on the “…

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When Nazi Comparisons are “Civil”

…igins of Totalitarianism, which he called “prophetic in its application to today.” Indeed the Manhattan Declaration itself, dressed up as a celebration of “life,” hauls out the trope that abortion is like genocide or holocaust, and claims that LGBT rights infringe on (real) Christians’ religious freedom. In his video released in conjunction with the Manhattan Declaration, Colson called the Declaration “crucially important for religious liberty,” a…

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Regnerus Ducks Responsibility for Study’s Misuse

…—something the study unequivocally does NOT provide. In fact, Christianity Today gave him a perfect opening to tell people to stop misrepresenting his findings, and he ducked it: What would you say to religious and political groups that promote traditional marriage and want to use the NFSS results to “prove” that parenting by same-sex couples is damaging to children? I am neither a theologian nor politically oriented, so I wouldn’t presume to tell…

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Workers Once Forced the Social Gospel Into Churches—Can It Happen Again?

…ge, official church statements of support for organized labor were scarce. Today, many denominations have such statements and they could be used to hold clergy and laity alike accountable in the midst of labor disputes. Given that rates of religious affiliation vastly outstrip support for unions among Americans today, there is ample room for such accountability. One other constant bears mention here: because church life in America operates on a vo…

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Do Make Trouble: The Complex World of Radical Jewish ‘Revenge Theologian,’ Meir Kahane

…y reading them outside academia? The popular discussion about antisemitism today is sorely under-theorized. I just read an excellent new book, still in manuscript, by a young scholar on middle-brow Jewish writing in the mid 20th Century. One of the things she shows is that from 1945 to the early 1960s there were dozens of books written by rabbis and Jewish scholars about basic Judaism, such as Milton Steinberg’s Basic Judaism or Irving Howe’s Worl…

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Restoring Dignity: The Employee Free Choice Act

…abor movement is solidly progressive. It has been the biggest single force promoting universal, government-supported health care coverage, protecting Social Security from Wall Street privatizers, and advancing a green jobs/green energy future. But that’s not all. The racist, jingoist, homophobic, misogynistic movement of American labor’s worst years—the George Meany/Lane Kirkland years—is long dead and buried. Today’s labor leadership is solidly a…

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