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In Defense of Clerical Celibacy, From a Protestant Liberal

…echoed this idea in 1 Corinthians 7, saying that he saw singleness as the best, most hassle-free way for Christians to serve God, “But if [people] cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn.” The message here is pretty clear: a few folks are gifted with the call and the ability to live lives centered on something other than married life, but most of us will need to marry if for no other reason than to kee…

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Where Polls and Surveys Fall Short: A Conversation with Robert Wuthnow on “Inventing American Religion”

…eligiosity, prayer. And yet when you look at the occasional major study of African Americans, with a large number of respondents and some white Americans for comparison purposes, the evidence suggests that African Americans are much more religious on average than white Americans in terms of how many hours in a given week they may spend at the church, or how important it is to them, or how often they see church friends, and so forth. That’s an exam…

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The Bible Says… and Other Myths About Scripture

…rifles, not back then anyway. They had everything to do with what language best captured the central mysteries of the faith: “a threefold Divinity which nonetheless was to be accounted as an indivisible Singularity,” most of all. A Translation Around Every Corner One year after James I ascended to the English throne, he commissioned a new English translation of the Bible, to be created by a committee of biblical scholars working both from the orig…

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Of Personhood and the Pill: What’s at Stake?

…r. In a typical cycle, two embryos are transferred, to give the mother the best chance at getting pregnant at all without risking high-order multiples. However, this isn’t an exact science. There is no way to know in advance how many eggs will fertilize, or how many embryos will develop. If a woman has more embryos than can be transferred, doctors pick the two best, and freeze the remaining embryos for later use. However, the sad fact is that abou…

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Despite Vastly Different Values, Evangelical ‘Hamilton’ Connects Secular Left and Christian Right

…r point was that art may not survive democracy. Borders are necessary. Our best art and our best ideas ought to be kept out of reach if they’re to do any real work in the world. As it goes with art, so it is with religion. Give your beliefs a tough shell or skin and the uninvested (some say undeserving) will pass it by. Thick skin protects what’s inside by sometimes repulsing even those willing to give it a try. Thin-skinned ideas on the other han…

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Falling in Love With the Earth: Francis’ Faithful Ecology

…biodiversity. (Yale’s Forum for Religion and Ecology assembles some of the best of that content here.) As I read through Laudato si I saw much of the speculation confirmed. Pope Francis reflects on our various ecological ills. He reflects on anthropogenic/human-caused global warming, water scarcity, biodiversity loss, the dangers of unlimited consumerism, the dangers of unlimited and overused technology, “a misguided anthropocentrism,” economic gr…

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Putting the “Protest” Back in Protestant: Reclaiming the Spirit of Resistance

…overall than most white Christian bodies. But the clarion prophet’s voice best exemplified by Martin Luther King Jr., is fading fast. It also bears noting that Black Pentecostalism (the still-growing part of the Black Church) is relatively less interested in structural social change than the African-American Baptist and Methodist traditions. Hispanic evangelicals? See Pentecostalism (above). Self-help, yes; structural social change (apart from re…

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Undercover at Falwell’s Liberty University, Finding Common Ground

…enthusiasm, despite praying and proselytizing and Bible-thumping with the best of them, Roose didn’t give in all the way. He didn’t get “saved.” His interior monologue never got too comfortable with the endless homophobia that passes for ordinary conversation among Liberty students, though he also fell short of speaking out against it at the time. When he returned, he was still a happy, post-everything Brown student. But he was still praying, eve…

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Are You Doing Your Part in the Baby War?

…to repopulate the city with Christians.” The religious right consistently promotes policies that defund any kind of government efforts to improve the conditions of working families. They support politicians and policies that strip poor, working and middle class families of social support. Everything from food stamps to public education to health care are on the chopping block, while they encourage expanded government funding for a large panel of…

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

…isms—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 guys,” and righteous frustration at the machinations of the villains. I’m also fascinated by the villain…

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