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John Calvin at 500: From Theocrats to Marxists, Calvin’s Vision of Joy and Cruelty Left Complex Legacy

By Paula M. Cooey

…blinked at me speechless. It wasn’t his fault. I have stuck with Calvin anyway, reading and re-reading him. Always wondering in the face of his words, though the reasons have changed over the years with every visitation. I no longer wonder at his painful death, however. Such a vision of joy and cruelty, sustained throughout a lifetime, can eat a person alive. The legacy Calvin left is ambiguous at best. The dominant strain that runs through consis…

The Scandal of the Cross

By Jeremy Biles

…Serrano and those of like mind, Piss Christ is not in any straightforward way sacrilege (a violation of holy things) nor is it simply blasphemy (ridiculing or transgressing that which has been consecrated, set apart for holy purposes). Rather, in his juxtapositions of the abject and the holy, Serrano offers a theological vision that at once recuperates the corporeality of Jesus and in the same gesture corrects the erring ways of the Church. Piss…

Capricology: Divine Madness

By Salman Hameed

…imulator. She argues in effect that she doesn’t want to do things the easy way; she wants to earn her way through the virtual world. I am reminded of the ongoing debates around multiplayer games about what constitutes cheating and whether it is appropriate for a character to pay real cash to buy a ready-made avatar which can function at higher levels than they have earned through game play. Or for that matter, the debates about using power surge f…

Unquestioned Support for Israel Wasn’t Always the Way for Conservative Christians

By Amy Fallas

…estinians. According to a policy paper from the U.S. State Department, the number of displaced Palestinian persons numbered 725,000 by May 1949. Although Palestinian repatriation and compensation for property was required under the UN Partition Agreement of 1947 and UN Resolution 192, Israeli Foreign minister Moshe Sharett objected on the basis “that their [Palestinian] return would disturb the homogeneity of Israeli areas.” In response, Christian…

The Antichrist Trap: Trump Isn’t the Whole Story

By Peter Laarman

…he 45th president—driving him from office by any means necessary—opens the way to our national salvation. This way of thinking is wrong and profoundly dangerous. It’s akin to thinking that if we can only silence the likes of Steve King, we will have disposed of the problem of white supremacy. Those who take this approach have fallen into what I call “The Antichrist Trap.” This obviously needs some explaining. The kind of ethical monotheism that at…

Barakah: Blessings Without Numbers

By Amina Wadud

…hat same power of divine sanction and the math. People some times think in numbers when they calculate the benefits or harm of things, vis-à-vis the divine. The idea of course is whether right or wrong it is important to exert the critical reasoning. You are blessed either way. Of course getting it right is twice as nice. The fundamental idea of rewards and punishments in Islam starts with the Qur’an. It does clarify that there will either be reco…

Wiccan Prayer in Iowa House Highlights Religious Freedom Problem

By Joseph Laycock

…that individual out, have a peaceful conversation with them about why his way was the best way, so that’s what I did today. Other Christians conspicuously engaged in “counter-prayer” during Maynard’s invocation. Some cited the “powers and principalities” referenced in Ephesians and claimed that Maynard’s prayer was casting a demonic influence over the Iowa representatives. Pastor Michael Demastus explained, via RadioIowa: “I was praying that she…

RD10Q: How the Democrats lost the Catholic vote

By Michael Sean Winters

…impervious to advice and discussion. From the outside, it might look that way, the same way a gothic church can look forbidding from the outside and is only really luminous when you get inside and see the stained glass windows. I have found the church, including the hierarchy, to be very receptive to my ideas, very open to discussion, very welcoming and encouraging, even when my thoughts stray from orthodoxy. Did you have a specific audience in m…

The Myth of “King David” Petraeus and Iraq

By Ira Chernus

…ans may find it just as impious and dismissive to treat the president that way as to treat the Bible that way, for they link the two sources of authority in all sorts of (often unconscious, some might even say mythic) patterns. From another angle altogether, my professors of comparative religion and theory of the study of religion taught me to be careful about myth. In those fields, too, the word “myth” was a bone of contention, chewed on endlessl…

The Higher the Dome, The Closer to God: “Megachurches” Explores the Arid Architecture of America’s New Sanctuaries

By Anita Little

…re of these buildings communicates the theologies of these churches in any way? Theologies are really varied. There are a lot of different denominations that are represented. I’ve noticed for instance that Southern Baptist Convention churches are often very large versions of what you’d consider a classic Southern church to be, with white columns and red brick. They’re kind of blown up in this strange way. Most of them don’t look like typical churc…