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Teaching the Dalai Lama’s Monks: Better Religion Through Science

“Do bacteria require light?” Tashi, one of my best students, wants to know. He sits there in Dharamsala, India, like his Buddhist monk colleagues, cross-legged on the floor in maroon robes, six hours a day learning science from a tall white Jewish guy from North Carolina. Religion often has a hard time of it, especially among academics, and especially among scientists. Of course academics have no problem studying religion and raising big money to…

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What Do Christians Think About the Netanyahu Speech?

…oycott its leader — they are no friends of Israel, and we pledge to do our best to educate voters about their undermining of Israel and the U.S.-Israel relationship at this crucial hour. Today, in an email to supporters, CUFI is urging voters to call their representatives and demand that they attend the speech. “Attending this speech is not merely an opportunity for our representatives;” the email reads, “it is their responsibility.” On the other…

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On Religion, Abortion, and Politics: Dr. George Tiller’s Christian Ethics

…n in Geneva even had committees set up to study the Bible to determine how best to build the city’s sewer system! Martin Luther did not see it this way; he saw the Bible as absolutely authoritative concerning the gospel, but detailed legal prescriptions in the Bible were for the people of that time. For Luther, ethical imperatives come from each person’s direct relationship with God (strange as that concept is for many people today). Those in the…

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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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American Jews: From Holocaust to New Age Hasidism?

The best Jewish thinking is conscious of being rooted in a certain historical moment. When theology is simply disinterested commentary on a textual tradition, there is nothing to give it ballast with a reader. But when theology presents itself as commentary for an audience that (so the theologian says) needs this commentary now, then it can transform a community. One of the most widely known bits of modern Jewish theology is Emil Fackenheim’s art…

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‘Pure White’ Examines the White Supremacist Origins of Evangelical Purity Culture

…be a strong nation, it needs to have a moral core. And that moral core is best defined by evangelical Christian teachings. So, there you have this formula that allows White evangelicals to demonstrate their right to political power: If we don’t have political power, everything’s in trouble. So again, this is the White Christian nationalism that works, not just on the popular level, but also on the political level—and this has been so firmly ingra…

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Transforming America’s Israel Lobby

…nything Al Jazeera decides to transform into yet another symbol of Zionist bestiality, eventually we will hear evidence that Palestinian propagandists and their media allies have distorted the truth. When Israel assaulted the West Bank village of Jenin during the second intifada, at first the international media alleged that hundreds of innocent Palestinians had been massacred, and that bulldozers had crushed houses and destroyed property for no d…

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

…m to be the case that this works in reverse, however. That is, despite the best efforts of some within the Religion-Industrial Complex (see below), there is absolutely no sign that white evangelicals are ready to switch their allegiance in any significant way to Democratic principles or to Democratic candidates. Unless, of course, Democrats are willing to pander in classic Republican fashion to the particular prejudices of these religious voters….

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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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Religious Freedom Org Sticking By Trump Clinging to SCOTUS Nominations

…ew reliable allies going to bat for him. And although Trump has seemed, at best, lukewarm about defending against the supposed “attack” on “Judeo-Christian values” in this nation, evangelicals and self-appointed religious freedom fighters continue to overwhelmingly support Trump. But those allies, like Trump’s TV surrogates, are increasingly required to twist themselves into rhetorical pretzels to justify their candidate’s behavior, policies (or l…

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