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Modernity’s Fraternity: What Dan Brown Gets Right

…own sensibility. Not only do Brown and the Masons both love secrets and encoded symbols, but they believe that all of it must surely add up to some single great truth. It is a worldview that flourished in the Enlightenment, in which occult science and a deep sense of mystery surrounded the rise of modern rationalism. What today might appear to be a contradiction between reason and occult mysticism was once a natural relationship, and no other mov…

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Joe Miller’s Anti-Gay, Anti-Islam Advisor

…nimum wage laws unconstitutional and claims to be a constitutional purist — pay Moffitt for his constitutional, uh, expertise? In the lawsuit against UNC, Moffitt and his co-plaintiffs alleged that the assignment of the Sells text violated both the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment — charging that UNC, a public institution, was not only unconstitutionally promoting Islam by assigning the text but inhibiting non-Muslims…

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Is the Satanist Behind 10 Commandments Challenge Sincere?

…legal team. Future plans involve legally ordaining ministers and using the free exercise clause to claim privileges for Satanists. Satanic ministers could, for example, illegally marry a gay couple and then, when the state refuses to recognize the marriage, claim that their free exercise rights have been violated. Other projects involve the Satanic ideal that one’s body is sacred and inviolable. Expressing disgust that corporal punishment is still…

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Turn On The News: This Isn’t a Split, It’s a Tiny Sliver of Conservatives Walking Out the Door — Introducing A New Media Criticism Column

…If you’re a media type who feels unnecessarily or unfairly skewered, feel free to respond at dan@religiondispatches.org with your side of the story. If you’ve got a point I’ll say so in print. (If you don’t, I may note that as well.) Readers are also welcome to send perspectives, tips, or suggestions. It’ll be like Rod Dreher’s mailbox—except not made up. Meeting the critical moment requires answering basic questions: Is a particular story accura…

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Romney’s Debate Coach and his Religion Answer

…inciple. As I wrote at the time, Romney had a conundrum: needing to defend free exercise of religion (an in particular, his religion), but realizing that the Republican base demands the “Judeo-Christian” answer. Given that many conservative evangelicals don’t even think Romney’s religion is part of Christianity, when he gave the “Judeo-Christian” answer last night I cringed—because he didn’t balance it with a free exercise answer. In other words,…

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NC’s Gay Marriage Ban: “It’s Going to Hurt the Church”

…hing of a “toxic and counterfeit gay-affirming gospel” to being injured by the church as a child. “In some ways he’s right,” Bakker told me in response. “It’s called empathy.” He continued: “Every time someone accuses me of cheap grace, I go back and say no, it’s free grace. Grace is free. The reason I understand the Bible the way I do is probably because I interpret through the pain that I’ve been through. But it’s not me compromising. I know wha…

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Despising the Holidays: When Christians Led the ‘War on Christmas’

…and plentiful, and the collapse of the licensing laws insured a degree of free speech hitherto unknown in the British Isles. The World Turned Upside Down would prove so enduring that it has been an English folk ballad for more than 350 years. The song’s opening verse, “Holy-dayes are despis’d, new fashions are devis’d. /Old Christmas is kicked out of Town” remains pertinent. It seems that a supposed “War on Christmas,” whether real or imagined, h…

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‘Religious Freedom’: Constitutional Principle or Electoral Politics?

…hat is political, but respectful of the constitutional limits on religious freedom. It has correctly taken the position that public policies established to serve the common good require a clear and narrow definition of what is and what is not a religion. We do not just abandon the common good to unexamined claims that a public health or education provider is required by faith not to comply.  We are prepared to give an actual religion an almost fre…

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Anti-LGBT Culture Warriors On The March; More in Global LGBT Recap

…rnational, the global arm of the LGBT-equality-opposing Alliance Defending Freedom, recently posted a promotional video portraying themselves as defenders of people being persecuted for their faith. “ADF International has a presence at every major international institution on the planet,” says Executive Director Paul Coleman. In the video, ADF International’s Director of UN Advocacy Elyssa Kor criticizes the United Nations for trying to force coun…

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Right Wing Suspicion of Experts is Martin Luther’s Fault

…CIA on cybersecurity. (In theological matters, however, as Kristof shows, free thought still reigns.) On balance, this is the right course to take; it exhibits the intellectual humility that even a well-educated citizenry must have. Of course, even if Republicans have taken an otherwise healthy skepticism to a mad extreme, Democrats should take care not to become fanatically loyal to an infallible elite. One hopes, for the sake of American democr…

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