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The Dark Side of Our Obsession With Trapped Thai Children

…hem voice; we heard them screaming for their parents. We know some of them use porta-potties. They are kept behind the same kind of chain-link fence that many of us use to confine our dogs. The president has described their kind as “animals.” Surely most of us, no matter what our political bent, feel sad for the entrapped children in both circumstances. But our collective conscience leads us to two different interventions on their behalf. Though s…

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Trump’s Pathological Devotion to Border Walls Isn’t Political, It’s Theological

…ounded but still living world. A CNN story on the use of Romans 13 that focuses on its use to spread Nazism focuses on the opposition to the violent interpretation of it by famous theologians of the time. It concludes: “Jeff Sessions may also want to consider that his invocation of Romans 13 might inadvertently backfire. If the political opponents of the administration start to read Karl Barth, they may, in fact, become more, not less, likely to s…

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Bob McDonnell’s Christian Reconstructionist Thesis

…hile taxation not explicitly endorsed in the Bible is seen as “theft,” the use of tax support and tax supported institutions to promote “biblical families” (among—and at the expense of—those of us who don’t believe in their God, their Bible, or their views of family) is based solely in this circular argument that God has ordained it thus. I am sympathetic to the fact that people’s views change over time (in fact suspicious of people whose views se…

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Bad Scholarship A Poor Solution to Anti-Trans Politics: A Response to the New York Times’ “Is God Transgender?”

…Israel’s conception of gender on the basis of this version of the text because no Israelite ever purposefully wrote this version of the text—it got here accidentally. Maintaining the assumption that there are no typos in the Bible is a fair starting point for rabbinic argument, but Sameth should use that assumption to make interpretations that allow Jewish communities to hold a more expansive views of gender instead of using it to reconstruct the…

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Religion vs. Science: America’s Perilous Fight

…ht. Teaching ID as science violated the Constitution, the court ruled, because ID promotes religion and the Establishment Clause requires that the government remain neutral on religious issues. If Richard Dawkins was right about evolution disproving God, then teaching evolution presumably would also violate the Constitution. He should temper his claims, especially given the limitations inherent in any effort to use science either to prove or to di…

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Islam in Conflict with Democracy? A Response to Stanley Fish

…seeks as a religion,” only heightens this possibility. It also further confuses matters because it ignores the differences between two very different religious cultures, the United States and Britain. The United States remains a proudly religious nation, while Britain is significantly more modest in its observance and public expression of religion. This much is bothersome as a wide range of culture warriors, from those who insist that this is a “C…

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Eyes on the Prize, Rainbow People! A Post-DOMA Challenge

…therwise compelling story about the need for queer people to make common cause with low-wage workers. She and her spouse are small-time farmers in the Central Valley: in that context they can feel how wrong it would be for them to say “thank you very much” to the Supremes and then proceed to ignore the economic struggles of their neighbors. But the phrase “saved the best for last” thoughtlessly suggests that the other SCOTUS decisions bearing on t…

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You Are Not Your Star Sign

…hrase goes; but which, in fact, draws our attention to the profound divide between that logic which is “actuarially sound” and that logic by which, as the past few weeks have emphasized, a sizeable percentage of Americans use to make sense of their lives. The “misperception” Allstate sought to correct was that, as an insurer, they might raise charges or restrict coverage on customers born under certain signs. Regardless of the actuarial logic, thi…

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Five Social Media Trends that are Reshaping Religion

…ministry: I check in everywhere I go… If I can interact with somebody because they know where I am, or they can find me more easily because I’m on Twitter or where I check in on Foursquare, then I think I need to do that simply because it allows me to be more accessible to everyone else who might be looking for me or ask me something. As the reality of part-time, bi-vocational, and otherwise extra-congregational lay and ordained ministry continue…

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Paul for the People: John Dominic Crossan Imagines a “Letter to the Americans” In His New Video Series

…tell us not to worry too much about that phrase “under God,” because if we use our freedom to establish justice for all we will be living under God whether we know it or not or acknowledge it or not. Paul would also be fascinated by our Declaration of Independence and its claims that all are created equal with such God-given-from-Creation rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. He would note with approval how the Declaration sp…

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