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Response to Daniel Philpott: the Politics of Religious Freedom

By Elizabeth Shakman Hurd

…learning from our colleagues and exploring these complex histories over a number of years, we have found that religious liberty is not a single, stable principle existing outside of history, as it is often depicted (particularly in policy circles in North America and Europe and by many academics invested in promoting religious freedom). It is, rather, an inescapably context-bound, polyvalent concept unfolding within divergent histories in differi…

Old Sins Cast Long Shadows: America’s Enduring Fascination with the Ten Commandments

By Jenna Weissman Joselit

…, there’s a whopper of a story here, I thought; one that went back quite a number of years and that encompassed matters of faith and ritual practice, material culture and daily life as well as the law. I then spent a number of years tracking down, unearthing and interpreting the many iterations of the ancient biblical passages that turned out, much to my surprise and delight, to be just about everywhere in the United States of the late 19th and ea…

What’s So Troubling About Funding a Playground? How Trinity Lutheran Undermines the First Amendment

By Elizabeth Reiner Platt

…ief revisiting here. A Missouri state program offered grants for a limited number of nonprofit schools and daycares to purchase rubber playground surfaces made from recycled tires. Prospective grantees were evaluated and selected based on a number of factors, including poverty level of the surrounding area and their willingness to generate media exposure for Missouri. In 2012, Trinity Lutheran, a Missouri Synod congregation, applied for the grant…

Boo! Trump’s Lead With Religious Voters Not As Bigly As You Might Think

By Daniel Schultz

…looks to be releasing new information on the Catholic vote on Halloween, a number which often closely tracks the final total of overall voters. It’s also a number that varies quite a bit by the racial breakdown. While Trump wins white Catholics 48-41, he gets absolutely crushed among Hispanics, 84-12. A few back-of-the-envelope calculations put us firmly in “Holy shit” territory. Even assuming a generous 50-50 split of black, Asian, and other Cath…

Trump with back to camera stands before a frenzied crowd with raised fist.

With ‘Vermin’ Remark Trump Crosses Fully into Nazi Territory

By Robert P. Jones

…few years of slaughter and starvation “Greatest happiness of the greatest number” is a good slogan, but at this moment “Better an end with horror than a horror without end” is a winner. Now that we are fighting against the man who coined it, we ought not to underrate its emotional appeal. If we ever could, we certainly can no longer afford to think that Trump does not matter. He is the presumed nominee of one of America’s two major political part…

Markets and Morality: Faith-Based Investment Group Profiles Polluters

By Frederick Clarkson

…lative to other companies in the pharmaceutical sector. But it has taken a number of decisive actions to reduce its risk “exposure” regarding greenhouse gases. Abbott has taken for example, a “Climate Responsible Energy Policy” that includes a five year plan for reducing the emission of CO2, our principal greenhouse gas. Among other things they are developing a carbon-neutral vehicle fleet: it is the first and only Fortune 500 company to commit to…

Ten of Our Favorite Top Tens

By The Editors

…ists. From the Ten Commandments, to the ten avatars of Vishnu (Krishna was number eight), to Buddhism’s ten precepts, religions are all about systems, ethical prescriptions—or proscriptions—and grand schemes. Order out of chaos is the name of the game. All this to suggest that the Top Ten list is obviously something deeply ingrained in the human experience. So here, without further preamble, RD’s picks for the Ten Best of 2008’s Religion Top Ten l…

United By Hate for Proposition 8

By Jonathan L. Walton

…dominant evangelical orientation of the black church coupled with a large number of Catholic Latino voters may just provide the support Prop 8 needs—it has been said, “politics makes for strange bedfellows.” Yet I am hopeful that enough minority voters will view this amendment for what it is, state-sanctioned discrimination and a bible-based prohibition against exogamy, which is reminiscent of previous state bans on interracial marriage that defi…

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

By Daniel Schultz

…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…

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

By Frances Kissling

…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…