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Escape From Manhattan: Tech, Tragedy and Storytelling in Sandy’s Wake

…cient for most people in their contemplation of supernatural other-spaces, today more and more people rely upon mediated worlds for this sense of voluntary displacement. So to see Manhattan itself go belly-up after the storm, to watch how carnal we become when met with loss of power, has been a sobering and a saddening experience. All of this has made me think more squarely about how inured we have become to screens as the mediator of our imaginat…

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Swimming Against the Tide: Religious (Non) Affiliation Might Not Mean What You Think It Means

…Such changes in declared identification have huge implications for society today. And yet the import and meaning of these changes are likely more nuanced than how they often are portrayed. A mouse pad decorated with a school of ancient “ichthus” Christian symbols (and a contemporary “evangellyfish” headed in the opposite direction). Image via Zazzle.com. A few examples: Self-reported church attendance is roughly the same today as in the 1940’s and…

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RDBook: There is Nothing New About the New Atheism

…lorification of man on the mind. Christopher Lasch’s question is as urgent today as it was when he posed it 18 years ago in his book The True and Only Heaven How does it happen that serious people continue to believe in progress, in the face of massive evidence that might have been expected to refute the idea of progress once in for all? Reitan raises in separate chapters the key arguments that atheists have used or attacked, including theories of…

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A collage of a Bible, Valdimir Putin, and the Kremlin and an outline of Russia

Putin’s ‘Year of the Family’ Declaration Blends Russian Nationalism with the Far-Right Rhetoric of the Global Pro-Family Movement

…broad concepts—such as “tradition,” “Russian,” and “the West”—can grant in today’s political context, 30 years after the end of Soviet Communism and amid growing authoritarianism worldwide. References to the West are kept purposefully vague so that the Kremlin’s “pro-family” battle aligns with U.S. conservatives and White nationalists’ own culture war against “woke elites,”[22] rather than treating them as anti-Russian threats to be countered. For…

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Of God, But Not God: A Methodist Minister Speaks About Church’s Refusal to Open Its Doors to LGBT

…in a whole series of laws, many of which we pay absolutely no attention to today. Such as? There’s a law that says you can’t wear blends of cotton and linen, or wool and linen. Nobody rails against people wearing blends today. There were very specific reasons for those laws that no longer make sense. In order to understand the reasoning behind “no man shall lie with another man” we have to take into account the fact that at that time they didn’t u…

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After Embracing Female Bishop, Pope Spins Again on Women’s Ordination

…e of one of those things being the priesthood? Pope Francis repeated again today his idea of the “feminine dimension” of the Catholic church being represented by Mary, and also said once again that Mary is “more important” to the spirituality of the church than the apostles on Pentecost. What the pope is neglecting to acknowledge, however, is that Pentecost would never have happened if Mary Magdelene hadn’t been the first witness to the resurrecti…

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The New God-Fearers (FKA “The Nones”) and Where to Find Them

…aware there are two distinct constituencies within the range of his voice. Today we’d call them churchgoers and Nones. But should we? “Nones” is a slippery, amorphous term, a null set. Maybe we’d do better to dust off the old God-fearer moniker, and apply it to those who are still coloring outside the religious lines as Lydia once did. American Christianity—especially its mainline Protestant variety—has largely forgotten how to seek out and visit…

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Don’t Blame Secularism: Reading Blind Spot: When Journalists Don’t Get Religion

…d ourselves in such a precarious and saber-rattling relationship with Iran today. It is not pleasant for anyone to face up to the structural ignorance that results from government policies having been translated into our lives, as well as the lives of our parents and children. Americans have long held that we are different from our enemies because we live in a ‘free’ society where people think for themselves. But the fact remains that what we know…

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Grace Under Pressure: Reclaiming Hope for Progressive Religion

…h counters and brave fire hoses and march through Selma and Montgomery for freedom’s cause. Hope is what led me here today—with a father from Kenya; a mother from Kansas; and a story that could only happen in the United States of America. It is the bedrock of this nation; the belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us; by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is; who have the courage to remake…

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Mormons’ Puzzling Indifference to Easter

…bout it: Mormons, post-Mormons, non-Mormons. I doubt mine is the only post today or this week addressing the strange situation. (Jana Riess wrote about it on Ash Wednesday.) The church has created media to encourage people to think more of Easter during Holy Week, regardless of what happens in Sacrament Meeting this Sunday. Part of the reason for it is the influence of New England Congregationalism and/or Puritanism on Joseph Smith and the religio…

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