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

By Jake Johnson

…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…

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

By Atlee Parks Breland

…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…

The Bible Says… and Other Myths About Scripture

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…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…

In Defense of Clerical Celibacy, From a Protestant Liberal

By Kate Blanchard

…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…

Repent, Hillary: Trump’s Evangelical Backers Play the Sin Card

By Hollis Phelps

…er told us how to vote, he gave us all the good common sense to choose the best leaders.” It’s important to emphasize that best doesn’t mean perfect, as Abraham, Moses, and David would remind us. The assumption of God’s providence, however, doesn’t work both ways—that is, it can’t be positively applied to Trump’s presumed opponent, Hillary Clinton. That may seem inconsistent, at least on the surface: if God chooses imperfect people, then can’t God…

Sam Harris and the New Islamophobes, Deconstructed

By Hamdan Azhar

…ates, and the men who treat their wives and daughters like chattel—are the best examples of the doctrine in practice.” This is the same man who says, about Islam, “All civilized nations must unite in condemnation of a theology that now threatens to destabilize much of the earth.” Often his arguments seem to be poor attempts to plagiarize from the protocols of the elders of neo-conservatism. But even Bernard Lewis, one of the leading defenders of t…

Defying Gravity Defies Sci-Fi Conventions

By Gabriel Mckee

…his is very much a primetime soap opera. The show’s Wikipedia page puts it best: “romantic entanglement will occur.” Come for the spacefaring science, stay for the melodrama. (Or is it the other way around?) But Defying Gravity isn’t just concerned with the characters’ “entaglements.” As in the work of Philip K. Dick, our earthborn religion is a concern as well, particularly in the pilot episode (available on Hulu through September 7th). As the sh…

Progressive Christians: Don’t Look to the Bible For Abortion Rights Arguments — Women’s Autonomy is Not a Biblical Value

By Rhiannon Graybill and Jill Hicks-Keeton

…w the Bible is not “pro-life” or “pro babies.” Other appeals are stronger: Numbers 5 offers a biblical sanction or even “recipe” for abortion. Numbers 5 does seem to offer the clearest description of an abortion in the Hebrew Bible. As interpreters often point out, this abortion is not condemned by God, but rather condoned. And, in a detail that resonates with our present abortion reality, the abortion in Numbers 5 is caused by administering abort…

Into the Darkest Moment of a Dark Year Comes the Saturnalia, a Time for Drinking, Swearing, Gambling, and the Circle of Life

By Farah Abdessamad

…d break from 2020? “December liberty,” as Roman poet Horace called it, the best of days! The Saturnalia used to be a beloved ancient Roman pagan festival, which was held right before the winter solstice, from 17 to 23 December in the old Julian calendar. It was a time of unlicensed celebration referring to a golden age without morality and rules. It praised life, and the mysteries surrounding the sun’s disappearance from our lives. It promoted rol…

The Story of a Post-Holocaust Group Seeking Revenge Against Nazis is Part of the Story of Israel Itself

By Shane Burley

…ew? The group didn’t form in isolation; it emerged out of the earlier East European Survivor’s Brigade (Hativa), which was founded on a few absolutes, including immigration to Israel, “self-defense as a nation,” “dissolution of the Diaspora,” and the unified establishment of a Jewish state. Their oath read: “I, a child of the Jewish people, do hereby swear, in full awareness, by the earth that is soaked with the blood of my dear ones, and by the m…