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Where Do “Sacred” Values Live in the Brain?

By Arri Eisen

…so found that sacred values thinking activated the amygdala, the emotional center of the brain. Perhaps not too much surprise there. Why does any of this matter? It goes back to why we believe what we do; the military strategists, the politicians. People make decisions—and act—based on their beliefs. The more we understand about the mechanism of why people believe what they do and how they act on it, the more we understand about people, period. In…

More Than Big Hair and Money: Jim, Tammy Faye and the Media “Holy Wars” of the 80s

By John Wigger

…Jim and Tammy were nothing if not provocative. They put themselves at the center of some of the biggest divides in American religion and culture, which meant that they had no shortage of supporters and critics on either side, particularly with regard to the prosperity gospel. What alternative title would you give the book? My working title was Pressed Down, Shaken Together, which comes from one of the favorite Bible verses of prosperity preachers…

The Third Jihad, Adelson, and Gingrich

By Sarah Posner

…ness in Rep. Peter King’s hearings on “The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community:” Unlike more wild-eyed anti-Muslim agitators like Frank Gaffney (with whom Jasser has collaborated) and Pamela Geller, Jasser comes across as calm, sober and professional. He gained notoriety in 2008, with the release of the Clarion Fund film The Third Jihad, which claimed that a fifth column of Muslim extremists have infiltrated America with the…

Gingrich Downplays Adelson Money, Stokes Fear of “Second Holocaust” at Florida Church

By Sarah Posner

…onsequences are dire: schools are failing, the divorce rate is climbing, and our society is rife with scandal and corruption. It’s time to reclaim our Biblical heritage and bring God back to the center of American life.” Stemberger was undoubedly looking beyond the primary with this message. Florida, he reminded the audience, “is a key battleground state.”…

The Sanders Insurgency: A Return to the “Secular Sacred”?

By Peter Laarman

…ls political entitlement. Open class conflict became a defining feature of American life throughout many decades when Americans still liked bragging to the rest of the world that theirs was a classless society. To be clear, I am not suggesting that the young people drawn to Sanders rallies, or the embittered working class people voting for Sanders, are consciously trying to revive the old ways of resistance. I am not suggesting that most in the Sa…

Americans Say Religion is “Losing Influence”

By Diane Winston

…n’s beneficial impact. But “over half of those who seldom or never attend [services] and close to one in the three Americans who say religion is not important to them personally still say it would be positive for society if more Americans were religious.” What planet do these Americans live on? Here in the U.S., religious fervor is at the center of a 30-year culture war that has debased civic discourse and rendered our nation ungovernable. Worldwi…

As a “Cult Leader” Disgraced Pastor Mark Driscoll Does Not Rank

By Jesse James DeConto

…r churches, Donald Barnett founded the Community Chapel and Bible Training Center, where worship included a “dancing revelation” and “healing touch.” Older men would kiss and fondle younger women and even children. One man’s “cult” is another man’s treasure, but, offered the above examples, I’m not sure a 13,000-member megachurch belongs in the lineup. Driscoll was kicked out of the Acts 29 church-planting network he founded over his history of bu…

Notify This! Vatican Bungles Response to Sexual Ethics Book

By Mary E. Hunt

…han, a Daughter of Charity, and Sister Simone Campbell, a Sister of Social Service, parted company with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops not once, but twice, in the health care debates. Their Catholicism trumped the Catholicism of the bishops in the minds of legislators and perhaps of President Obama himself. So it is with Margaret and Elizabeth that their well-reasoned, experience-encompassing, pastorally sensitive work simply tru…

Roy “10 Commandments” Moore Doesn’t Want to Reform the Senate, He Has a Higher Calling

By Sunnivie Brydum

…und did indeed spark nationwide conversations about the very issues at the center of Moore’s Biblical world-view: questions of marriage, faith, and “natural law.” If Moore could accomplish all that without setting foot outside of Alabama, just imagine the trouble he’ll be able to stir up in Washington, D.C., where he’ll join the unofficial-but-growing Congressional “dominionist caucus,” which includes the Vice President. And if he finds himself si…

NOM’s Brian Brown Went to Russia to Push Anti-Gay Laws

By Peter Montgomery

…persecution at home and abroad. This week, Miranda Blue at People For the American Way, where I am a senior fellow, is publishing a series of reports at PFAW’s Right Wing Watch on American religious conservatives’ involvement in the passage of anti-gay legislation in Russia, where brutal anti-gay violence is one consequence of the rhetorical and legal gay-bashing by Russian officials. One particularly newsworthy item is Blue’s reporting on a pre…