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Wiccan Prayer in Iowa House Highlights Religious Freedom Problem

By Joseph Laycock

…heon points out, there is a danger that when we understand ourselves to be promoting pluralism, we are enforcing a tacit division between “good” and “bad” religions (what Leonard Primiano called a “two-tiered model of religion”). A recent example is the fracas that occurred last year when The Satanic Temple offered to re-enact a black mass as part of a Harvard cultural studies club. The Temple’s multicultural performance was quickly reinterpreted…

Is America Willing to Be Freed from Its Demons?

By Willie James Jennings

…s our enemies, and the latter constructs a false sense of independence and freedom.” I don’t know if we Americans, especially Christians in America, want to be freed from our demons. The late New Testament scholar Walter Wink defined the demonic as an array of human and supra-human forces aligned to destroy life. The demonic was both individual and structural, personal and collective, sentient and mechanical. Wink’s expansive way of writing about…

In Praise of Failure: Is Defining Religion Such a Good Idea?

By Ivan Strenski

…ng any distinctive rights or obligations: bye-bye to the establishment and free-exercise clauses of the Constitution, etc. They might as well protect us from the “establishment” of widget and the “free exercise” thereof. Both are meaningless, since neither “widget” nor “religion” point to anything specific. Linker, on the other hand, takes the exact opposite tack: he legislates the meaning of “religion” as those particular referents marked by the…

Driscoll Makes Plagiarism Complaint Disappear

By Evan Derkacz

…“Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter? Her confuting is the best and surest suppressing.” I am with Milton here: The freer the press, the less the innocent have to fear and the more the guilty need to be worried. We’d like to think so. But the rub, as Miller argues, is that all too often the light merely shines on crafty rhetoric. Read Miller’s piece here. *Ingrid Schlueter resigned, sh…

The Contraceptive Mandate and Animal Suffering

By Frances Kissling

…ther blogs has accused Singer of an “advocacy sleight of hand” in equating freedom of religion with “freedom to worship.” Smith and his crowd want not only an expanded definition of what is to be a religion, they want any activity a group or individual claims is “religious” to fall outside the scope of government control. He says “the exercise of one’s religion involves how the faithful live their lives outside of the church, synagogue, temple, or…

Joe Miller’s Anti-Gay, Anti-Islam Advisor

By Sarah Posner

…f Carolina students are better prepared to enter this University, they are better citizens for it.” Ah, but being better informed citizens was actually anathema for Moffitt and his genius friends who apparently saw this as a threat to Christianity. At the time, Moffitt told the PBS program Religion and Ethics Newsweekly that the assignment of this academic text constituted proselytizing and “I don’t think that Islam is a religion of peace.” Did Mi…

Why Notre Dame’s Contraception Flip-Flop Undercuts Bishops’ Religious Freedom Claims

By Patricia Miller

…battle against the contraceptive mandate dealt more in falsehoods and hysteria than facts or the nuances of Catholic moral theology. Ironically, it took freeing Notre Dame from the mandate for it to realize it had been free all along….

Muslim Beard Decision was a Boost for “Religious Liberty” Advocates

By Kara Loewentheil

…to be? But if that’s the case, then any burden a plaintiff claims (or at least cares enough about to litigate) would be substantial. Please note, I’m not arguing about whether or not having a beard is a central element of Islam. And I realize that the free exercise in question need not be “central” to any religion for it to qualify for RFRA or RLUIPA protection, under current jurisprudence. What I’m trying to highlight is the erasure of a distinc…

It’s Not “Inappropriate” for Public School Teacher to Tell Class that Obama Isn’t Christian

By Joseph Laycock

…discuss important controversial topics and that schools must be “religion free zones.” Superintendent Ledbetter announced that he’s considering more diversity and sensitivity training for teachers. He also sent a certified letter to the parents explaining that the incident will not happen again and that Nancy Perry is retiring. A local NBC affiliate reported, “The superintendent believes it goes back to a basic lesson: don’t talk politics or reli…

Ringing in a Christian Nationalist 2019 With an Even Larger Legislative Playbook

By Frederick Clarkson

…Focus, “Enforcing Federal Law Mandating Compliance by Public Schools with Free Speech Guidelines,” also comes with a model bill, The “Preserving Religious Freedom in School Act,” which essentially seeks to fully enforce a guidance regarding school prayer issued in 2003 by the federal Department of Education. The manual explains that “Federal law requires certification of compliance with Department of Education guidance assuring the religious free…