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Even After an Obama Victory Reports of the Death of the Religious Right are Greatly Exaggerated

…eligious right is probably a permanent fixture in American politics. Like any social/political movement, it will see victories and defeats at the polls. No one electoral loss will spell its doom. The nation’s top ten religious right organizations bring in collectively more than half a billion dollars a year; their messages reach millions. A movement with this much money and [this many] supporters is simply not going to fade away overnight.” At thi…

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Ten of Our Favorite Top Tens

…he year was that of presidential candidates and the pastors they kept company with; Jeremiah Wright “damned” America, discredited himself (in the mainstream press) and almost took Obama down with him, while McCain’s pursuit of the demented John Hagee’s endorsement almost sent the candidate home to Arizona. 3.) TOP TEN RELIGION STORIES FROM CHRISTIANITY TODAY What’s particular to this list, posted by the Billy Graham-founded “magazine of evangelica…

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Updated: G-O-D Plays a Bit Part in First GOP Debate

…en for thinking that Reagan was God, or at least a patron saint, given the number of times he was name-checked in the debate. Mostly it went like this. The candidates did talk about hot-button social issues, but they held back from claiming religious sponsorship of their ideas. It’s not clear if they’d gotten the memo about not antagonizing religiously unaffiliated voters, or if they simply didn’t see much advantage in differentiating themselves a…

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What Do You Think?: “Padre Oprah” Scandal Has Many Asking Whether Priests Should Be Allowed to Marry

from sex. Celibacy remained mandatory. God went relatively silent and the number of men hearing the call to the priesthood declined. Only 480 new priests were ordained in 2008. The number of graduate level seminarians declined from 8,325 in 1965 to 3,286 in 2008. There is little cachet in the Catholic family these days in having a son become a priest. While no figures are available, anecdotal reports and expressed Vatican concern indicates that G…

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Who Would the Buddha Bomb?

…our own motives and aspiring to reduce harm and suffering for the greatest number of those at risk.” Ven. Thanissaro Bhikkhu, another notable teacher and translator in the Theravada tradition, disagreed vehemently with Bhikkhu Bodhi’s position, writing a lengthy letter to Inquiring Mind in which he outlined various objections. “The common view—that murderous force is an unfortunate but necessary last resort—is what has caused so much money, time a…

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Reactionary White Buddhists Have Joined The Fight Against Critical Race Theory

…red with anti-critical race theory laws being passed for K-12 schools in a number of Republican states and further bills aimed at higher education proposed. What many will perhaps find more surprising is that the rhetoric being used by Campus Reform and their ilk is far from new to me or fellow researchers working on racial justice in American Buddhism. Rather it echoes some of the white Buddhist backlash to racial justice work. A number of white…

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“Can You Tell Me Who The Villains Are?”: Rock and Religion, Irish-Style

…ve religion. They’re humble, good-humored, musicians from down the pub of any small town: lads that anyone can chat with about things that hardly matter, which are actually the things that matter the most. For the Irish, that means religion. “A victim’s asking for the road to Knock,” begins another great Saw Doctors’ song, referring to the famous pilgrimage site where villagers saw the Virgin Mary in the late 19th century, and where pilgrims come…

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Is Obama the Antichrist? Why Armageddon Stands Between the President and the Evangelical Vote

…ts, a hidden “plan of the ages” emerges. According to their decryptions, a number of events will transpire just before the apocalypse. These include a return of the Jews to Palestine, a decline in morals, religious apostasy, and the consolidation of independent nations into one super-state led by a seemingly benevolent leader who is actually the Antichrist. During the last 100 years, evangelicals have witnessed more and more evidence of these prop…

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The “Mormon Moment” Yields… Not So Much

…lves:  down from 65% of Americans surveyed to 61%. Some measurable gains have been made among mainline Protestants: 28% surveyed in 2011 said they have “a lot in common” with Mormons; now, that proportion is 42%. And when asked to give a one asked to give a one-word descriptor of Mormonism, the number of respondents offering a positive word like “good,” or “honest,” increased from 18% in 2011 to 24% in 2012.  All of these gains were concentrated a…

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For Conservatives, the Future Looks Dim… and Gay

…ble.” But those “moral objections” seem to be of less concern to a growing number of Americans: Just under half of Americans (45%) say they think engaging in homosexual behavior is a sin, while an equal number says it is not. Those who believe homosexual behavior is a sin overwhelmingly oppose gay marriage. Similarly, those who say they personally feel there is a lot of conflict between their religious beliefs and homosexuality (35% of the public)…

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