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Are American Christians “Persecuted”?

By Eric C. Miller

…hey don’t have it as bad as gays in ISIS-held territory. So let’s put that cheap argument to bed. At Patheos, Benjamin Corey shakes that cheap argument awake: Can we stop complaining about this bogus idea that American Christians are persecuted now? I mean, really. Can we stop? The world needs us to turn from ourselves and focus on this real persecution, because it’s evil and must be exposed and stopped. However, our own self-centeredness as Ameri…

Modernity’s Fraternity: What Dan Brown Gets Right

By Samuel Biagetti

…g the way, he can’t resist including some of the Masons’ absurd legends surrounding their supposed origins, and so allows fact, fiction, and myth to blend into a heady mixture. The book reflects not the fear and suspicion often directed towards the Masonic mysteries but rather the continuing strength of the mindset—the mix of hope and terror surrounding the advance of human knowledge—that gave rise to the Masons in the first place and that set the…

Memo to David Brooks: Francis Is Not Naïve For Criticizing Capitalism

By Peter Laarman

…credit: the man has balls to say this. Yes, fracking gives Americans more cheap carbon energy—for a while. And then we’re left with ruined landscapes, ruined aquifers, and our same old dependence on foreign energy sources, having failed to turn to renewables while mindlessly pumping more cheap petroleum into our veins. Like other critics of the new encyclical, Brooks chalks up the pope’s hostility to capitalism as the product of naivete or perhap…

Godly Game or Godless Satire? Countering Biblical Ignorance with Heretical Humor

By Betsy Shirley

…the Old Testament because they’re long and boring…” Here pauses. “Granted, Numbers is like…” “I like Numbers, but anyway…” mumbles Caleb. “The real impetus for the game,” Thomas resumes, “is to get people to engage in Scripture and read stories they’ve never read before. When a concubine is cut up into twelve pieces, that imagery is really offensive. But a lot of people didn’t even know that story existed in the Bible.” I suspect they’re right; re…

Why Crux‘s Knights of Columbus “Partnership” is Problematic

By Kaya Oakes

…ancis focus on his Easter message, and in the latest installment of “Papal Phone Calls,” Pope Francis called a sick seminarian and told him to “keep his chin up.” An analysis of the murder of a Congolese priest again focuses on anti-Christian attitudes and calls for a “new concept of martyrdom.” The focus of the site seems to be moving more toward being about Pope Francis and anti-Christian terrorism abroad, and less about the American church and…

Why I Wrote the Freedom Seder And Why It’s Still Necessary 50 Years After Dr. King’s Assassination

By Arthur Waskow

…do this; I knew only that I could not stop. When I had finished, I called around to find a Washington rabbi who might be sympathetic. I asked him—Rabbi Harold White—to read my draft: Was this a crazed obsession or a good idea? Two days later, he called me: “I love it, Waskow. It’s an activist midrash on the Haggadah! You’ve taken the story into our own hands, as the rabbis said God wanted the fleeing slaves themselves to do. Do you know that midra…

Too Hot for Shul: Rabbis Seek Healthy Israel Dialogue After Gaza

By Sarah Posner

…g the 2012 war in Gaza. “The issue is we have an entirely toxic ecosystem around Israel right now,” said Rabbi Melissa Weintraub, director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs’ Civility Campaign. As a result, “People perceive their only options are avoidance or antagonism.” Through its Resetting the Table initiative, the JCPA, she said, has developed a “whole framework for trying to detoxify the system,” which is focused on building a “culture…

Teaching Love: Soulforce Takes it to the Quad

By Nick Street

…love anybody else. We just happen to disagree with them. That gets turned around into they hate us, and it may be that people who say things like that have experienced something like that. That’s not Christian. We wouldn’t invite them on campus, but we wouldn’t go out and intentionally be hurtful either.” More power than they knew As night falls, the Equality Riders have gathered for a potluck dinner at the home of John Schenck and Robert Loyd, on…

A Muslim Reflects on Christian Theologian (and UCLA Coach) John Wooden

By Amir Hussain

…ding a life as one could hope. Coach Wooden was ready for a good death, surrounded by family and friends, knowing that he would soon meet his beloved Nellie again, who had passed on some 25 years earlier. But the tears in my eyes were not for Coach; in losing him, we lost not just one of the great American men of the last century—one of our greatest teachers—but someone who transcended our differences and cared for everyone. There are many dichoto…

My Lowest Point

By Amina Wadud

…ace. We’d made plans to meet up in case we got separated and had exchanged phone numbers. In the middle of the tawaf, the call to prayer came. The guards stopped the tawaf. Some people complied and started to form lines. I found a spot between two women, each with their husbands, and sat down on the line. This seemed an ideal spot until a woman in black niqab squeezed in on my left just as we started the prayer. Okay then. Before we had completed…