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Rick Warren Busts a Gut Over Cultural Revolution

…r PC society etc.”  The number of supportive and sometimes racist posts outnumber those who advice caution.  I can’t suspect such hideous posts are all from Saddleback membership.  I’m sure quite a number are.  It’s as disturbing as it is disgusting. Warren commented on Tsang’s article, “Thanks so much for teaching us! It was removed instantly.” However, Warren did not get around to posting a formal, public apology until the next day, once again,…

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Growing Up Gay in 666: Fred Phelps in Retrospect

…ify hate and violence. And while the coincidence of being born under the “Sign of the Beast” in Topeka 666 is still a little unnerving, there are differing opinions about the number’s translation. Some theologians suggest the number should really be 616, in which case, all eyes on Peoria, Illinois….

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Spinning Ft. Hood

…need to recognize that military culture is distinct from civilian culture. Language and rhetoric that we use in the political sphere, especially language that is hateful and divisive, is generally not acceptable in a military context. It would be very easy to make assumptions about Major Nidal Hasan, what he represents, and why the military should not trust people like him. Of course, there are so many ways to define him, that essentially we are s…

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Response to Daniel Philpott: the Politics of Religious Freedom

…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…

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Mormon Tabernacle Choir Will Usher In the Trump Era

…hite evangelicals; the Utah College Exit Poll, however, with a much higher number of Mormon participants, put the number closer to 45 percent. Both figures are well below previous Mormon voting percentages for the Republican candidates, but they indicate that at least half of Latter-day Saints were willing to stomach Trump’s apparent moral deficiencies. This turn of events has historical precedent. Though the LDS Church’s political affiliation was…

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

…, 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…

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

…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…

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

…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…

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

With ‘Vermin’ Remark Trump Crosses Fully into Nazi Territory

…at home would have to be eliminated.” In 1940, after Hitler had invaded Poland, sparking a war with France and England that eventually led to World War II, George Orwell reviewed a new edition of Mein Kampf in the New English Weekly (the same edition available at the Gutenberg link above). His words about Hitler—written five years before Animal Farm (1945) and nine years before Nineteen Eighty-four (1949)—are prescient for the American context to…

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Markets and Morality: Faith-Based Investment Group Profiles Polluters

…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…

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