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Pope Francis Praised for ‘Civil Unions’ Comment, But Justice Begins at Home—In the Vatican

…ke expressed expected horror—is that it’s based on scant data. That’s clue Number One that the topic is ripe for conversation and that people of varying views will use Pope Francis’ words to confirm their own positions. A look at the movie offers a context for how to interpret the text. Unless one knows better in advance, it would be easy to conclude from the film that there are just a handful of Catholic women in the world. Evgeny Afineevsky craf…

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Secularism in the US is Larger, More Diverse and More Dynamic Than Ever, But You Wouldn’t Know it From the Media

…s as mostly atheists and agnostics when they clearly are not (although the numbers of atheists and agnostics are rising as well), the subtext that the nones haven’t fully thought through their choice to disaffiliate from religion is offensive—and it’s a prime example of how journalists talk over nones instead of to us. Bolling, by contrast, works directly with students, which gives him valuable insight into their mindset and decision making. “Some…

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Oklahoma Bill Would Violate Basic Freedoms, Rewrite the Ten Commandments

…the many differences between various Jewish and Christian sects in how to number and interpret these different sets of commandments. All of this I explain in my book, The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American. Seemingly small differences are magnified because Christianity has historically claimed to possess ultimate truth, so any deviation from an absolute truth is significant. Minor variations are further magnified by, as James…

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Harry Reid vs. Islamic Cultural Center

…t’s not a proud day for freedom of religion when a prominent member of the number two most disliked major religion in America effectively sides against a honest project by the number one most disliked major religion in America. Especially when Mormons have just recently come through our own years-long struggle to build an LDS temple in Center City Philadelphia after Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter tried to extract a six-figure sum from the Churc…

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New Report: Angels & Aliens in Texas Schools

…them. That’s what severed the relationship. Academic Quality A surprising number of courses asked little more of students than to memorize Bible verses or learn basic details of biblical stories so that they could fill in the blanks on tests. Some made very questionable choices about the use of classroom time, such as the course that spent two days watching “the historic documentary Ancient Aliens,” which presents “a new interpretation of angelic…

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Why Even Progressive Christianity Must Own Its Complicity in Anti-LGBT Violence

…, self-harm, and suicide among LGBT youth and adults. Of course, a growing number of churches and denominations today have rejected such a destructive understanding of human sexuality. Religion Dispatches recently compiled a list of the official positions on LGBT issues currently taught by various Christian denominations. According to this list, mainline Protestant denominations such as the United Church of Christ and the Episcopal Church claim th…

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A Jewish Perspective on Reparations

…g, then one can see their fruits in Germany today. Last month, following a number of horrid, hateful slogans chanted at Jews (in the context of otherwise legitimate protests against Israel’s attack on Gaza), and a number of violent incidents, there was a large public vigil in Berlin to protest anti-Semitism. Among the attendees were German President Joachim Guack, members of Germany’s parliament, leaders of both of the country’s major churches, an…

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The Anti-Trans Hate Machine’s Conspiracies Don’t Stop at the US Border

…per, Die Welt, escalated the mainstreaming of right-wing talking points. A number of researchers wrote an op-ed, in which they accused the ARD and ZDF, the independent, state-funded TV news stations (the German version of the BBC) of “indoctrinating” kids with “gender ideology” in order to sexualize and “re-educate” them. The article hits all the right-wing bullet points of a shadowy conspiracy at work: The media, driven by secretive “trans-lobbyi…

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Swimming Against the Tide: Religious (Non) Affiliation Might Not Mean What You Think It Means

…llowing such a line of reasoning might mean we are seeing an uptick in the number of American’s who will report a life-changing Christian experience while simultaneously being less likely to identify with any particular Christian institution. This raises questions about the complicated relationship between Americans and their willingness to affiliate with large institutions (religious and otherwise) in general. The rate of decline in affiliation f…

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A ‘Pro-Life’ Buttigieg Ambush, Trump’s Corrupt Counsel, and More

…and some of them want their hegemony back. You can see this play out in a number of ways in the headlines. 2. There’s a specific desire to maintain the hegemony of conservative social practices, leading Trump to appear at the March For Life, the first president ever to have done so. The effort appears to have paid off, with marchers shouting things like “four more years” and “we love you.” 3. Though Democrats overwhelmingly favor reproductive rig…

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