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

By Ed Knudson

…to keep former black slaves from full participation in society for another 100 years. Only in the 1960s were African Americans given full legal rights in public life. Then in 1968 came the election of Nixon with his “Southern Strategy.” Ronald Reagan was the first president to explicitly seek the vote of a religious right, now emerging as part of a white backlash against the gains of black citizens in the 1960s. It must be recognized that the Sou…

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

By Gabriel Mckee

Over the last year or two, I’ve become an unironic, unapologetic fan of reality TV. I know the criticisms—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 gu…

Why I Am Still a Christian

By Diana Butler Bass

…who is might be willing to give Christianity a second look—those who are “spiritual-but-not-religious” and the “church alumni club.” And those who might be completely post-religious and just want to read a good story about interesting people in the past. Are you hoping to just inform readers? Give them pleasure? Piss them off? I always want my readers—of my books, blogs, or articles—to say, “I’ve never really seen the world from that angle before…

Is it Kosher Now? The Evolution of Kashrut in the Wake of the Agriprocessor Fiasco

By Benjamin Weiner

…tributed to kosher businesses that conform to the activists’ standards of fair labor practices. (It has been noted that these are, in essence, no different than what the businesses are already expected to adhere to under New York state law.) Unlike the heksher tzedek, which also goes further in the moral obligations it places on the institutions that would seek its sanction, the tav does not aspire to the mantle of “kosherness,” but is instead set…

Is Christianity Simply About God Entering the Uterus of a Jewish Virgin?

By Eric Reitan

…eciate after stumbling across a little known and out-of-print book from the 1950’s, psychotherapist Don Browning’s Atonement and Psychotherapy. The account isn’t one that Browning invented—it’s far older than that. What Browning did was use the metaphor of psychotherapy to elucidate this old and profound understanding of how the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus could have a truly redemptive power in the world. Browning begins by…

RDPulpit: Ahmadinejad Gives Another Victory to the Israeli Right

By Rabbi Michael Lerner

…that led to the flight of some one million Jews from Arab countries between 1947 and 1967. When Prime Minister Netanyahu, Avigdor Lieberman, and other right-wing extremists are able to point to this irrational hatred of the Jewish people as the “real” underlying message of the critics of The Occupation, they stir up fears among Israelis that seem to be rationally founded, given the hatred being expressed. All the more so when one witnesses the str…

The Bible Says… and Other Myths About Scripture

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…ad cost Tyndale his life. Coverdale published his English language Bible in 1535 and, by 1537, it was being printed openly in London. When Henry VIII realized that his national church needed a national Bible, he selected Coverdale’s version as his “Great Bible.” Edward VI then commissioned the Book of Common Prayer in 1549. Both books were ordered to be purchased by every church in the land. And since “Reformation requires transformation of doctri…

V-Day: An Arrow in the Heart

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…Many a Romantic artist has said the same: the self must clear out for the spirit of creativity to enter. Loss of self is perceived as fulfillment of self. Now enter the lover in love, long venerated by poets and rhapsodes of all stripes, starting with the lyrical Lesbian, Sappho herself. The lover who tries to leave reason in control, she warns, does not follow her god to the end. It is the very chaos of love, the swirl of love, that may link our…

President Receives Mixed Messages from Catholic Hierarchy

By Kate Childs Graham

…continue to find in their impressive religious and political heritage the spiritual values and ethical principles needed to co-operate in the building of a truly just and free society, marked by respect for the dignity, equality and rights of each of its members, especially the poor, the outcast and those who have no voice. At a time when so many of our brothers and sisters throughout the world yearn for liberation from the scourge of poverty, hu…

RDBook: Feminist Theologian Defies the Vatican Agenda

By Rosemary Ganley

…008, it is Catholic Does Not Equal the Vatican. You bet it doesn’t. In just 142 pages, six chapters, with not a wasted word, Ruether lays out once again her critique of ecclesial patriarchy as life-denying and institution-killing. “When I open her books,” writes Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, president of the Chicago Theological Seminary, in the foreword to the new book, “a force of mind and heart comes out that simply will not submit to patriarchy….