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A Love Letter to #Exvangelicals and Those Deconstructing Their Toxic Faith

By Andrew L. Seidel

…oundation, Black Nonbelievers, the American Humanist Association, Hispanic American Freethinkers, American Atheists, the Center for Inquiry, Ex-Muslims of North America, and many more, including hundreds of amazing local groups that offer a more intimate and familiar community. Many of these local groups, such as the Atheist Community of Polk County (Fla.), are filling the community and service space that has been, until recently, monopolized by c…

A Moral Galaxy: War and Suffering in “Star Wars: The Old Republic”

By Robert M. Geraci and Nat Recine

…rk moral decisions the players make, with their own loyalty (and continued service) dependent upon each player’s choices. It is common for people to treat computers as though they were people, and this is clearly magnified in the accountability systems of SWTOR’s companions. The computer controls the companions—but they accompany the players, fight with them, and respond to the decisions that the players make. The companions will like or dislike p…

Even if Biden Wins Will We Reckon With ‘Virtuous Republic Syndrome,’ the Persistent Belief that America is a Blessed Nation?

By Peter Laarman

…about forever, of a very large share of the Black people living here, now numbering 42 million. As Malcolm X pointed out decades ago, it’s impossible to regard the United States as a nation of laws when those laws are very often suspended in the case of Black people. Malcolm believed, correctly, that a nation choosing to be only conditionally lawful cannot really be regarded as lawful at all—and should certainly stop its boasting about equal just…

COVID-19 is Concentrating Wealth Even Further; Can we Talk About the Surplus of Powerlessness in the Faith Community?

By Peter Laarman

…they debrief, and that’s one reason they remain incredibly powerful). Most Americans, and especially most liberal Americans, never take time to reflect on failure and learn from it. We resist the idea of failure in the same way we resist the idea of death. And here’s where I will sneak a little Easter message into an otherwise bleak critique—and this really is a message of love to my many, many friends in faith leadership circles: Let’s not be afr…

A Pandemic isn’t a War, But Recognizing What They Share May Help us Heal

By Zachary Moon

…our moral distress could energize concern and compassion, and give life to service and community-building. Like so many others, I’m dealing with a household inundated with stress, uncertainty, and despair. And I’m also holding two dreams. First is the dream of a community that recognizes its common fate, that questions the fabrications of national borders and all other devices of nationalism. A community that experiences a sense of collective belo…

What We Actually Mean By ‘Sacrifice’ During the Pandemic Makes All the Difference

By Matthew J. Walsh

…ularly exposed to the public these days are at genuine risk in their daily service. Sacrificial ideas don’t just seem to be everywhere right now: they are. But what’s meant by the term ‘sacrifice,’ and is its use appropriate for the current state of affairs? What are the implications for the notion of sacrifice as it’s used by some to express a willingness to haphazardly expose portions of the population to a potentially deadly virus? In the U.S.,…

Sure, There’s No ‘Religious Left’… If You Ignore Non-White Christians and Non-Christians

By Daniel Schultz

…to the right of Sanders as “neoliberal.” As Jack Jenkins of Religion News Service demonstrated in a long thread, if you take a broader view, the religious left is very much more than “people on the internet,” including the Democratic Socialist icon Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. And as many others, like Dana Houle, pointed out with varying degrees of sarcasm, Bruenig’s tweet ignored the substantial portion of the religious left that’s non-white, and/or…

Lying in the Name of the War Lord: Jane Roe’s Fake ‘Conversion’ is a Feature Not a Bug of the Extreme Christian Right

By Frederick Clarkson

…and? David Lane of the influential Christian Right political organization, American Renewal Project is also a Rahab fan. The organization, an affiliate of the Mississippi-based American Family Association, plays a quiet role in organizing and indoctrinating conservative clergy, especially in election years. They provide all-expense-paid trips for thousands of clergy and spouses to hear from the likes of Dominionist and Christian Nationalist author…

Fundraising for Kyle Rittenhouse Reveals American Christianity’s White Supremacy Problem

By Andrew L. Seidel

…ore fit for leadership.” In other words, thinking of god as white, as most Americans do, means you think white people are more fit to lead and better to hire. It’s an inherent bias written into the DNA of American Christianity. The imagery is everywhere, even in footsteps of progress. The Mississippi legislature voted to remove an overt symbol of white supremacy, the Confederate flag, from the state flag, while at the same time requiring that the…

‘God Made Them Male and Female…and Eunuch’: Why the Biblical Case For Binary Gender Isn’t So… Biblical

By Tony Keddie

…especially for transgender—people in employment, health care, and military service. Mark and Matthew present Jesus’s teaching as a narrowly defined discussion pertaining to the interpretation of a law in Deuteronomy. The texts don’t reject gay marriage; they don’t even address it. Hard-nosed conservative leaders persist in reciting verses from Leviticus and Matthew as God’s Word—and the final word—on the issue. Matthew 19:3–6, for instance, remain…