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Romney Accuses Obama of Stifling Religious Liberty

…abstinence education in our children’s schools—their devotion to religious freedom goes out the window. They would force Catholics and others who have beliefs rooted in their faith to sacrifice the teachings of their faith to the mandate of federal bureaucrats. That’s the same Romney who pledged, while he was running for governor of Massacusetts in 2002, “I respect and will protect a woman’s right to choose. This choice is a deeply personal one. W…

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Burning Man: Religious Event or Sheer Hedonism?

…ished around the Man as it ignites and burns, once it collapses people are free to surge toward and dance around the pyre.) My nieces puzzled over this for a moment, and soon realized this anonymous individual was indeed shouting “theater” in the midst of a rather “crowded fire.” When they told me this story later that night, I immediately seized on it as the title of what was at the time my dissertation as I thought it spoke brilliantly and provo…

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Driscoll Makes Plagiarism Complaint Disappear

…“Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter? Her confuting is the best and surest suppressing.” I am with Milton here: The freer the press, the less the innocent have to fear and the more the guilty need to be worried. We’d like to think so. But the rub, as Miller argues, is that all too often the light merely shines on crafty rhetoric. Read Miller’s piece here.  *Ingrid Schlueter resigned, sh…

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South Carolina Gubernatorial Candidate Called “Raghead”

…as Obama did, but I apologize to both for an unintended slur.” But, as the Free Times reports, Knotts wasn’t quite as repentant in the moments after uttering his slur. With a bead of sweat rolling down the side of his face outside a Columbia bar, Republican S.C. Sen. Jake Knotts called Lexington Rep. Nikki Haley, an Indian-American Republican woman running for governor, a “raghead” several times while explaining how he believed she was hiding her…

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Mormons Declare Same-Sex Marriage Apostasy, Deny Baptism to Children of Same-Sex Couples; Colombian Court OKs Adoption Over Church Objections; Franklin Graham Praises Putin’s Anti-Gay Policies; Global LGBT Recap

…a very nice person,” Graham told a Russian newspaper. “But he supports and promotes policies that contradict the teachings of God. As a Christian I believe that abortion is murder, he supports it. Homosexuality and same-sex marriage — those are sins against God, and the president is promoting them. I’m not against homosexuals as people. But God commanded that marriage should be between a man and a woman.” “And I very much appreciate that President…

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The Christian Roots of the New Age: The Aquarian Gospel

…lsewhere. What makes that idea different in the The Aquarian Gospel is the free and almost casual borrowing from every religious tradition known to Levi Dowling, the frank sense that all religions aim at the same essential truths and that what the Veda said first, Jesus said conclusively. The inhabitants of the Age of Aquarius just so happen to be especially ready for the revelation. There is a surprising degree of self-congratulation and a brash…

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A Match Made in Hell: Demons Have Become a Serious Force in US Politics — But We’ve Seen This Show Before

…world as Unger did. Spiritualism returned in the form of the “New Age” and free love made a comeback. The American way of life that so many conservative Christians were attached to was threatened. Not surprisingly, demons returned with a vengeance. This crisis was channeled into films like Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, and The Omen, catalyzing this fear around an imagined source: shadowy cults lorded over by the Devil and aided by demonic forces…

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Republican Lauren Boebert Jokes About AR-15s and Jesus — And Yes, She’s a ‘Real’ Christian

…hrist.” She goes on, “We came to Jesus, because we were bound, we were not free. But Jesus paid the ultimate price to set us free for all of eternity.” No, there’s simply no tenable case to be made that Boebert is not a “real” Christian. She is very much a Christian. She is also a terrible person. And if we can’t get it through our heads that it is very possible to be both of those things at the same time, we will never effectively counter the cor…

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Hell 101: A Back-to-School Reflection on the Persistence of Belief in Eternal Punishment

…h or equality of outcome is not a popular political position. There are no free rides, and that entails that some—perhaps most—are going to lose. It’s really the same logic that my students advocated for against the tendency towards universalism in Origen of Alexandria and Gregory of Nyssa. I would suggest the reason they had so much trouble with the prospect of universal salvation had more to do with cultural assumptions rather than religious one…

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Why are Nuns and Monks in the Streets? (Parts I & II)

…identity. Tibetan monks believe that they must have internal autonomy: the freedom to establish their own policies, to manage their own affairs, and not to be subject to ideological pressures or other forms of interference from the state. In Tibet today it is precisely the issue of autonomy—the freedom to opt for a Buddhist way of life and to establish such a way of life institutionally—that is the greatest source of conflict between the clergy an…

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