Search for "breaking newstoday cleantalkorg2.ru bbc news Read Breaking News Today news today Politics Stock Market breaking newstoday"

New Report: Young People Leaving Church for Science

By Paul Wallace

…than it was in, say, 1978. I know that anti-science runs amok in churches today. I read about it every day. But because the churches I’ve attended have been neither conservative nor reactionary, and because I’ve spent the large majority of my adult years on university campuses, I don’t have any direct exposure to life in anti-science congregations. Have any of you left the church (or a church) mainly because of its antagonism toward science? If y…

NPR Largely Misses Critical Distinction on Religious Freedom vs. LGBTQ Rights

By Sunnivie Brydum

…endment’s prohibition on state establishment of religion can reasonably be read to mean that government agencies—and, crucially, publicly funded entities—should create policy based on the public interest, not on any particular religious doctrine. Yet the reader of this NPR piece might leave with only the vague sense that the government is telling a religious institution what it can and can’t believe in or act on. Without mention of the finer disti…

Fascinating History of Search for “Lost White Tribe” Sheds Light on Construction of Race

By Michael Schulson

…. Robinson Oxford University Press, April 2016 This premise isn’t exactly true; race is a construct—a shifting template created by human beings and applied to human bodies. To be clear, constructs are real. Racial categories are meaningful to anyone who lives within them (i.e. everyone), and this whole conversation could sound utterly irrelevant to, say, a black woman who’s just been pulled over by the police. Still, not to get too circular here,…

The Tense History Behind Jimmy Carter’s Liberty U. Commencement Address

By John Fea

…e decide whether we tell the truth, or benefit from telling lies. We decide, do I hate, or am I filled with love? We’re the ones who decide: do I think only about myself or do I care for others?” Carter delivered a gentle, yet powerful, exhortation to a Christian university run by one of Donald Trump’s chief evangelical surrogates. At one point during his address he identified himself as an “evangelical Christian.” At ninety-three years old, he is…

Why it (Still) Makes Little Sense to Call ISIS Islamic

By Haroon Moghul

…legal traditions, Islamic or otherwise, discussed consent in the way we do today. In the past, she said, “we don’t hear about consent in marriage, or in relationships where sex is lawful. What we do hear and read about is that anyone, slave or free, who is harmed, can take that case to a judge. A woman could go to a court and say her husband hit her, bruised her—she could get compensation.” In the Prophetic period, consent was often passive: Expec…

California Tribes Denounce Catholic Church’s “Fraud” and “Blatant Fabrication” on Serra Sainthood

By Peter Montgomery

…ome Latinos/as. In April, Vatican official Guzman Carriquiry, who is from Uruguay, said canonization would help overcome lingering anti-Catholic and anti-Hispanic sentiments in America. But speakers at today’s press conference suggested the church has better options. “Surely Archbishop Oscar Romero is a more worthy candidate for the Hispanic peoples of the Americas,” said Norma Louise Flores, author of a MoveOn.org petition opposing the canonizati…

Kirill’s Sermon May Be Bad Preaching and Even Worse Theology — But it’s a Top-Notch Rejection of Liberal Democracy

By Daniel Schultz

…ia’s war of choice, then demands that they admit their offense against the Russians if they want to be offered Russian forgiveness. Apologize for making me hit you, says the bully, and then I can forgive you! To top it all off, he couches his message in such a way that he can later claim to have been calling for the Christian values of peace and forgiveness all along, rather than green-lighting aggression. He concludes his message with a prayer th…

Religious Right Reax to SCOTUS: “A Spiritual 9/11”

By Peter Montgomery

…is now our 9/11.” The AFA’s Tim Wildmon made the same analogy, calling the ruling a “spiritual 9/11.” Fox News’ Todd Starnes, who has been in full meltdown over the “cultural cleansing” of the Confederate battle flag, turned his attentions to the marriage ruling, warning, “If you thought the cultural purge over the Confederate flag was breathtaking – wait until you see what LGBT activists do with Christians.” He said, ridiculously, “Pastors who re…

Militias, Trump, Guns, and ISIS: Too much Masculinity?

By Stewart M. Hoover and Curtis D. Coats

…It is in the raging debate over gun policy and in the candidacy of Donald Trump, who is men’s last hope “to get their masculinity back,” according to Andrea Tantaros of Fox News. Masculinity is also behind ISIS’ Western volunteers and behind the gunman who shot twelve, killing three, at a Planned Parenthood Clinic in Colorado Springs. It is in the deadly shootings of African Americans by police officers and in the militarization of police forces….

Uganda’s Anti-Gay Bill Reintroduced in Parliament Today

By Peter Montgomery

Warren Throckmorton and the Associated Press are reporting that Uganda’s infamous kill-the-gays bill has been reintroduced in Parliament. The bill stalled last year in the face of international pressure, including condemnation from the U.S. State Department, but its backers have never given up. The legislation and the violent anti-gay rhetoric promoted by its supporters have been part of a wave of anti-gay campaigns in Africa backed by American a…