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Why the Women’s Ordination Question Will Shape the Future of Mormonism

…and a more equitable role for women in LDS Church leadership and service. Today, the global operations of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are governed and directed by an all-male organizational chain of command.  Mormon women may participate in some decision-making at the congregational level.  But at all levels most forms of institutional power—from the power to shape the church’s global policies and finances to the power to bles…

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Haiti and the Push for Theological Questions

…k the capital of Portugal on November 1, 1755, All Saints’ Day. Scientists today speculate that it probably registered as a nine on the Richter scale. It devastated the population. Estimates of the number of people killed range from 10,000 to 100,000. At the time the quake struck, worshipers filled the churches honoring their dead. The churches, the worshippers, and the city around them were effectively destroyed. Not long after the major quake hi…

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The Sanders Insurgency: A Return to the “Secular Sacred”?

…–the sole concerns of the kind of business unionism that is most prevalent today. They demanded total social transformation, equating “wage slavery” with degradation and a horrible affront to democracy itself. If we can easily see from our perspective how white racism and nativism tainted and fatally handicapped their insurgency, we should also remember how resentment and suspicion of “the other” were consciously and continuously stoked by the so-…

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2010: What Did We Believe In?

…c barrel, money rules our lives and guides our actions like no other force today. Unemployment, bailouts, national debt, foreclosures, bank regulation, layoffs, and entitlement programs—the list of economic concerns remains the same since the start of the financial crisis in 2008, but the upcoming social, cultural, and political battles over how best to deal with these concerns cuts straight to the heart of national identity—a point made dramatica…

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The Devil is in the Details

Today is my last official day for completing local business before departure. I’ve balanced my checkbook and paid all of my bills except the ones that are automatically paid (which is about the same as being paid, when the checking account from which they are drawn has been balanced). I’ve taken out cash for travel with the knowledge that using ATMs abroad is always a great way to get the best rates. Yep that’s right. The U.S. always considers it…

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Southern Baptists Embrace Minorities, but Not Gays

Southern Baptists are feeling pretty good about themselves today. Eleven years after the denomination apologized to African-Americans for supporting segregation and slavery, it elected a black man as its first vice president of the convention—“the highest position yet held by an African-American” in the denomination, the New York Times notes. Fred Luter Jr. pastors a largely black church in New Orleans and is apparently an “overwhelming favorite…

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The Oil Spill and “Real Deathliness”

…utives or incompetent engineers or Obama or who-the-hell-ever we turn into today’s whipping boy. But the truth that everyone wants to deny is that the whole culture is sick from top to bottom. We’re all addicted to oil in ways we can’t even grasp, and nobody—nobody—has any plausible idea of how to break free from the system. There are plenty of ideas floating around, yes, but there are no easy answers to put into practice today. If there were, we’…

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Same-Sex Marriage: Good for Marriage, Good for the Pocketbook

…pparently to blame for the decrepit state of marriage in the United States today, and giving recognition to the nuptials we will soon celebrate will only hasten the demise of this esteemed institution. That’s the gist, anyway, of Bishop Harry Jackson’s open letter to President Obama, urging him to prevent the overturning of the Defense of Marriage Act or DOMA. Jackson, a vocal opponent of marriage equality and senior pastor of Hope Christian Churc…

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The Racist Message of Do-Nothing Religion, Courtesy of Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick

…placency with racialized religious privilege that has come to characterize today’s Republican Party? It depends, of course, on what (or who) you mean by “America.” And what you mean by “God.” Not to mention what it means to “turn to God,” or to “heal racism.” The devil’s in the details, and paraphrased headlines are often misleading. What Patrick actually said in his Fox News interview is that to address racism in American culture, we need to “cha…

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Jerusalem Honors Right-Wing Mogul Sheldon Adelson

…elson is doing his best to spread the message through Israel HaYom (Israel Today), a free tabloid that is the country’s must-read news outlet. Adelson told reporters at the Jerusalem gathering that he does not dictate the newspaper’s coverage or editorials, but that both reflect his point of view and that of his close friend, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In a nation of news junkies, Israel HaYom is trying to steer public opinion to the right…

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