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The Technological Apocalypse is Coming (Straight to DVD)

By Andrew Aghapour

…tfully low-budget sci-fi film that will be released next month. Here’s the official website of the movie, where release details should be announced shortly. Trailer below (spoiler alert: look out for cameos by Alan Dershowitz AND Tony Robbins). Details about the film and its release are still hazy, but the trailer alone nicely illustrates how quickly Singularity-brand futurism can turn into science fiction. Intertwined with Kurzweil’s interviews o…

Catholic Child Neglect: DC Archdiocese Cuts Adoption Rather Than Abide Same-Sex Parents

By Mary E. Hunt

…l the Catholic Church’s rhetoric on family and human life the Archdiocesan officials would have a little shame about abandoning their work with children. If they could bring themselves to confront the dire needs of DC’s foster children, they would hide their faces rather than be connected with any policy that would prevent children from being placed in loving homes regardless of the gender constellation of the parents. Alas, there is a shortage of…

Father Does Not Know Best: How To Fix the Catholic Church

By Mary E. Hunt

…cades were not done by a few bad apples who spoiled the bushel, as Vatican officials have long insisted about the perpetrators. Rather, what comes into sharper and sharper focus with each new hideous revelation is that the hierarchical model of the Church, with absolute authority vested in a few individuals at each step up the ladder (a priest in his parish, a bishop in his diocese, a pope in Rome) is in and of itself a danger zone. Human organiza…

America’s First Mormon Televangelist

By Joanna Brooks

…al responsibility for the care of souls, and that unlike an actual elected official, Beck has no actual responsibility for devising practicable solutions to incredibly thorny problems like financial market meltdowns, runaway health care costs, or ending the costly and ill-conceived wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yes, it is in fact easier to pray on your knees (as Beck exhorted his audience Saturday) than it is to wrap your head around credit-defaul…

Argentina Considers Gay Marriage Bill

By Joanna Brooks

…tement on gender and family issues. The letter reportedly does not take an official position on the legislation or ask members to donate of their time and means, as did a similar letter read to California Mormon congregations in June 2008 at the beginning of the Proposition 8 campaign. Although billed as one element of a faith-based “Yes on 8” coalition, Mormon participation in the 2008 campaign has been viewed as decisive in the passage of the st…

The Trials of Janie Spahr

By Richard A. Lindsay

…s that simultaneously express pastoral kindness and prophetic fire. She is officially retired from the ministry, but continues to find fascinating ways to spend that retirement—this is her second case in three years involving marriages of same-gender couples. The last case ended up before the Permanent Judicial Commission of the General Assembly (the highest court in the denomination), which did not recommend any censure for Spahr but ducked the l…

The Ground Zero-Sum Game

By Reuven Firestone

…Its roots can be traced to the fourth century when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. After suffering centuries of bloody persecution under pagan Roman authority, Christians suddenly became privileged citizens of the empire. Many leaders of the Church considered the sea-change a divine sign of the absolute truth of their religion, that historical success proves theological truth. It was a zero-sum view of the world: “Tr…

Misusing Cesar Chavez in Immigration Debate

By Luis Leon

…nation pulsating throughout Arizona’s Christian and Jewish communities (no official word to the large percentage of Mormons was issued). How ironic, then, that some advocates of Arizona’s SB 1070 have misappropriated Chavez in their anti-immigrant hysteria, citing the late organizer’s advocacy for the enforcement of laws against Mexican immigrants isolated from its historical context. This myth is repeated in Richard Rodriguez’s recent essay “Sain…

Mormons React to Prop. 8 Ruling

By Joanna Brooks

…aughn Walker’s ruling Wednesday overturning California’s Proposition 8. An official statement released Wednesday afternoon by the LDS Newsroom reads: “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints regrets today’s decision. California voters have twice been given the opportunity to vote on the definition of marriage in their state and both times have determined that marriage should be recognized as only between a man and a woman. We agree. Marria…

Postcard from the Vatican

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…ritual, about the July 21st edition of L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s official weekly newspaper, most of which was dedicated to the very weighty (and altogether earthly) matter of legal reforms that were approved by the Pope in late May, as a response to the current crisis. I have commented before on the curious way in which the Vatican is also a state, and as an independent state, is composed of many bureaucracies working sometimes in surrea…