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Baring Their Testimonies: Mormon Women Get Naked for the Camera

…become distorted within the wider culture, like all the cultural restrictions put on us, the ways we’re told to cover up and the way that our bodies are controlled and regulated by patriarchy and the ways we’re told we can and can’t use them.  I would hope that this project pushes against that and focuses more on the positive. Like this story? Your tax-deductible $5 or $10 will help us pay writers, coders, interns, and editors. And will earn you o…

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Evangelicals Call Christian Zionist Uncritical “Support” for Israel “Appalling” and “Intolerable”

…ined “the Arabs living in that land right now under Israeli control have a better quality of life, they’re freer and more prosperous than in any other Arab country.” Gushee and Stassen, though, continue with a sharp rebuke of Christian Zionism and its role in the oppression of the Palestinians: This Christian version of Zionism matters deeply, not just because theology intrinsically matters, but because it is overwhelmingly clear that American eva…

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Bob McDonnell’s Christian Reconstructionist Thesis

…hile taxation not explicitly endorsed in the Bible is seen as “theft,” the use of tax support and tax supported institutions to promote “biblical families” (among—and at the expense of—those of us who don’t believe in their God, their Bible, or their views of family) is based solely in this circular argument that God has ordained it thus. I am sympathetic to the fact that people’s views change over time (in fact suspicious of people whose views se…

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Biden’s New ‘Restore the Soul of a Nation’ Ad Aimed at Black Voters Wary of the Frontrunner’s Dodgy History

…ing that a Biden Administration would represent a “return to normalcy” (to use the dreadful phrase coined by Warren G. Harding’s campaign). Just two (or maybe three) points worth noting about Biden’s use of “soul of a nation” rhetoric: 1. We don’t know the current condition of the nation’s “soul,” but we do have many hints regarding this matter that are unsettling, to say the least. If our “soul” were fully intact, would we even have Trump running…

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Fear of a Catholic Ghetto

…y minority opinion. Michael Peroutka didn’t miss out on the presidency because his supporters were ghettoized. He lost because a whole lot of people wanted someone else to be president instead of Peroutka.  And having a minority opinion can be, you know, fine!  I’ve been told I hold many such opinions myself.  But it’s a little bit disingenuous to then say, “What’s this? My uncompromising belief in something almost nobody else believes or comprehe…

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The ‘Charlie Charlie Challenge’ and Teenage Yearning for Supernatural Encounters

…arlie as a demon appears only to make him more appealing. Ellis notes that use of the Ouija board has a structure similar to exorcism, in which an entity is called forth, named, questioned, and then dismissed. The Charlie Charlie challenge eschews some of these elements because the conjured entity is already identified and the game/ritual does not allow for open-ended responses. And yet the ritualistic opening and closing remain. Players emphasize…

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No, Sunni and Shia Muslims Have Not Been Fighting Forever

…whose policies would be anathema in American civil discourse. Is dying because America needs to keep its allies happy better than dying because you’re in the wrong religion, or pray in the wrong way? I don’t know, but I don’t imagine it makes all that difference. I imagine it wouldn’t to you, either, if your loved ones were being killed, oppressed, dispossessed and so on and so forth. That our victims are largely Muslim is important, but not centr…

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The Evangelical Sex Disconnect

…lanned Parenthood is one of the primary providers of abortion services because the intimidation of and restrictive legislation promoted by anti-choice activists have driven other providers out of business?) But the Republicans refuse to admit the clear evidence: that not a single dollar of federal money pays for anyone’s abortion, and that all the federal money that pays for family planning services is spent with the aim of preventing unintended p…

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Diplomatic Suckerhood: Why Israel Is Fighting Toward its Own Demise

…m? The whole Zionist project to create a Jewish state began not merely because Jews felt victimized, but because so many felt powerless to do anything about it as long as they lived among the goyim (gentiles). What’s more, many early Zionists were ashamed of their weakness, seeing it as a sign that Jews were “abnormal.” They expected to escape all those feelings once they had their own independent nation, with its own armed forces. It doesn’t seem…

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Tyler Perry’s Museum of Blackness

…presentation—not only distanced Perry from his usual target audience of African Americans, it placed large servings of parody, caricature, and stereotype on a platter for white audiences to devour. I was really, really uncomfortable watching this film. The question then becomes: what is so disturbing about Perry’s new strategy? Perry’s audience shift dismisses the deeply-rooted history of racism in black entertainment—a history that is especially…

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