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On Religion, Abortion, and Politics: Dr. George Tiller’s Christian Ethics

By Ed Knudson

…an beings are completely free to use their rational capacity to decide how best to live within the world. That is why their vocation in the world is so important. But as Lutherans engage in their vocation in the world, they are not promised to be able to know any better than non-Christians what is right or wrong, good or bad. This is why Lutherans cannot, on the basis of any secret or specialized revelation, seek to tell the world how to run its b…

No, Sunni and Shia Muslims Have Not Been Fighting Forever

By Haroon Moghul

…use the power of the state to marginalize, and practically execute, large numbers of unarmed black men, women and even children, and deny even the possibility of legal redress to those left behind. Speaking of undying hatreds, when do you think American racism will end? We have gone to war with Muslim-majority countries and funded wars that have killed huge numbers of people. Iran’s anti-monarchic revolutionary Shia Islam is embedded in an anti-c…

Evangelical Stephen Baldwin’s Imitatio Christi & “Reality” TV

By Gabriel Mckee

…isms—they dumb us down, they elevate public humiliation—but what I’m really interested in is the way shows like Spike’s Joe Schmo Show or VH1’s I Love Money turn into morality plays about the value of friendship and loyalty. In the best reality shows, the initial rush of schadenfreude is gradually replaced with a genuine affection for the “good guys,” and righteous frustration at the machinations of the villains. I’m also fascinated by the villain…

Are You Doing Your Part in the Baby War?

By Katherine Stewart

…dy. “We had originally planned not to have kids, but now we have to do our best to repopulate the city with Christians.” The religious right consistently promotes policies that defund any kind of government efforts to improve the conditions of working families. They support politicians and policies that strip poor, working and middle class families of social support. Everything from food stamps to public education to health care are on the choppin…

“Ex-Gay” Common Ground More of a Killing Ground

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…point is that people can leave whatever it is that God calls less than His best and move into something that is His best, becoming more like He is. Honestly, this isn’t news. So-called “ex-gay ministries” have long given up the promise of turning homosexuals into heterosexuals. True, some who say they’ve “left homosexuality” have married opposite gender partners and had children. Here we can begin the long argument over Alfred Kinsey and his conti…

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

By Daniel Schultz

…mpanion kept 95.7% of it.) It’s possible this is part of a larger trend. A number of paragraphs down there’s mention of a long-delayed vote on the future of the denomination, which might lend credibility to the headline, but no details are given, so it’s not possible to evaluate the claim. Likewise, near the top of the story comes a paragraph with a quote from an RCA pastor about the financial difficulties this will create. Does he speak for the d…

Neuroscience Says Evil is “Over”: Not So Fast…

By Paul Wallace

…ion or function of the brain, it must not be real. The article points to a number of ways neuropsychology has been overinterpreted and oversold. Rosenbaum addresses the fetishizing of fMRI images, the ideology that conflates causation and correlation, and the shifting semantics — evil recast as “non-empathy” by one esteemed psychologist (echoing, interestingly, the traditional Christian understanding of evil as a privation). But it’s the image of…

LDS General Conference in the “Mormon Moment”

By Joanna Brooks

…ave asserted the Christianity of Mormon belief for national audiences, the number one reaction has come from Christians who seek to correct my understanding of my faith and remind me that Mormons are not, in their eyes, Christians. Some assert that they’ll be praying for my mistaken soul (and the soul of my Jewish husband too). Others seek to engage in a friendlier conversational exchange about whether Mormons profess the Nicene Creed. (We do not…

The Only Common Denominator of American Conservatism is Anti-Blackness

By Yannick Marshall

…iting. Or that a president who bought an ad calling for the murder of exonerated Black youth and who, according to a family member, used the N-Word unsparingly, is saddened at the death of a “Civil Rights hero.” They would believe that his disciples “hold their nose and vote” for such a man, or, alternatively, have been taken in unawares by his charm, rather than believe that they would follow him in their millions even unto the ends of the earth,…

New Poll Reveals That Anti-Trans Rhetoric isn’t Just Affecting Republicans and White Evangelicals

By Chrissy Stroop

…er right-wing Christian politics were and remain awful, her coming out generated a great deal of buzz about trans people. Despite the inevitable misgendering tantrums lobbed at Jenner by her fellow White evangelicals, Americans were learning about trans people, and that encouraged me as a trans woman who had yet to come out. I felt like acceptance was just around the corner. How quickly times change. Things went downhill fast when Donald Trump bec…