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In Praise of Failure: Is Defining Religion Such a Good Idea?

…ms of art made possible by the artist that breaks the mold? Oppenheimer’s frustrations with “religion” are not unique to it, nor any reason to despair about using the word. Would a journalist be equally frustrated about the term “art” and give up using the term? I doubt it. No, “religion” has special enemies, about which I shall say something later. The point is that in many contexts, we do quite well with words for which we have no precise meanin…

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The Better Angels of Our Nature: The Need for a Third Reconstruction

…cklash, which is still going on today. I fully agree with Rev. Barber that today we need a third Reconstruction. It will not simply be a defensive effort to reverse the retrograde policies—in North Carolina and elsewhere—that inspired the Moral Mondays movement. A third Reconstruction, as he notes, must confront head-on the problem of economic inequality, which warps our political, educational and social lives. Only the kind of cooperation across…

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Free Arabs: Satire, Disobedience, and Disclaimers

…over his writings on police torture, secret services, the King’s salary, drug cartels, and hot-button issues on religion and Islamist parties. He has been frequently prosecuted and fined—and the newsrooms of his two publications have been closed down. Free Arabs is, thus, the latest iteration of a long project designed to amplify the voices of a new generation of Arab thinkers, activists, journalists, and artists who dare, against all odds, to fl…

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Why Jason Collins’ Faith is Ignored… And Tebow’s Isn’t

…fore his announcement: The clarion call of freedom sounds within my soul, trumpeting the truth that the love of God liberates me from unhappiness, hurt, or fear. I bid farewell to any emptiness from the past, and open myself to realizing my heart’s deepest longing and aspiration. Collins’ now famous opening lines—“I’m a 34-year-old NBA center. I’m black. And I’m gay”—allude to the inseparability of blackness from sexuality in a culture that often…

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RDBook: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World: An Interview with Michelle Goldberg

…Pareyio’s story is instructive. She’s an amazing Masai woman in Kenya who runs a shelter for girls who have run away from home to escape female circumcision. She enrolls the girls in boarding school, and, because circumcision is such a right of passage among the Masai, she has created an alternative ceremony that offers girls a meaningful transition into adulthood. No outsider could do what she’s doing. But one reason that her work is possible is…

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Largely Overshadowed by the Election, ‘Red Pill, Blue Pill’ Transcends Standard Explanations of Conspiracy Culture Which is ‘Killing Us All’

…f their ills. Authoritarians can be found everywhere on the political spectrum, but they are concentrated decidedly on the right. Although the specifics of today’s surge of misinformation are new, the bones are very old. In one of the most topical sections of the book, Neiwert dissects the current right-wing obsession with so-called “critical race theory” and “cultural Marxism.” He meticulously gathers the evidence to show how this strand of consp…

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Conversion Story #643 (not a real number)

…adamant about self-identifying as “revert to Islam.” I don’t know when the politics of this refusal to be considered a convert came about, but I do know why. There is a popular misunderstanding that the Prophet said, “Everyone was born Muslim… and then their parents make them Jew or Christian (or whatever)…” Actually, the Arabic of that popular misunderstanding says, “kullun ‘ala al-fitrah.” Everyone was born ‘ala al-Fitrah. The word “Muslim” does…

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I Met God, She’s Black: An Exhibit Makes the Black Female Body a Temple

…ct of slavery on their families but also to resistance within the family structure that allowed for them to be here today. That’s a really important component of this project. People are desiring to heal, but they’re also desiring to affirm the power of resistance to social forces. It seems a lot of black women who came to this exhibit saw it as a sacred space and described it as similar to going to church. How does this space stand as an alternat…

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The Garden of Eden: A Dull Place? Paradise Lust Author Explains…

…en has played a role in recent public debates about religion, science, and politics. It never got a Scopes Monkey Trial—though it was certainly discussed in Scopes. Are we overdue for a major public debate about Eden? Or is it too rarefied a concern, somehow? Brook Wilensky-Lanford: Christianity Today recently tried to ignite a major debate about whether there was a “real Adam,” that is, one original pair of primate ancestors we are all somehow de…

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The Curious Case of Mormons and LGBT Rights

…with a constitutional ban that keeps same-sex marriage off the table, LGBT politics in Utah does not “advocate domesticity and promote consumption under the name of equality politics.” It engenders grassroots, cross-party dialogue that takes into consideration the needs of various households—single, gay, straight, and other. This community-based politicking was embodied by the 2009 “Common Ground Initiative” (CGI) formulated by Equality Utah. Alth…

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