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The Heresies of Christopher Hitchens

By Austin Dacey

…istake of saying, in effect, that while what Susan had said may be partly true or even plain true, she would still have been much better advised not to say it. I think she herself may have feared that she was somehow “objectively” helping Ronald Reagan. But whether her mind changed her, or she changed her mind, she manifested the older truth that all riveters of the mind-forged manacles most fear, and that I here repeat: One cannot be just a littl…

The “Royal Consciousness,” “Confidence Fairies,” and Economic Catastrophe

By Daniel Schultz

…y to order and reorder the situation without adaptation to the new reality breaking in all around. Brueggemann understands this a kind of despair, as with the Israelite kings unable to understand that their fiefdoms were lost, and exile in Babylon was just around the corner. Only when the depth of loss is accepted and internalized can the people be freed to reach out to the new beginnings made possible by what has ended. Prophets, according to Bru…

Masturbation, Evolution, Or National Security?

By Sarah Posner

There’s a debate breaking out about whether Christine O’Donnell’s victory in the GOP Senate primary in Delaware yesterday is good for Democrats. She’s so nutty, the yes thinking goes, that surely all those pro-Mike Castle moderate Republicans and independents won’t vote for her, and the Democrats win a crucial Senate seat. For a lot of people O’Donnell’s views on masturbation and lust (documented in detail at TPM) are not only comical, but cause…

The End of the Religious Right? Not So Fast

By Frederick Clarkson

…ssues—apparently without consulting those whom he expected to join in the truce. They declared that such a truce is the equivalent of “surrender.” Daniels, a possible 2012 GOP presidential contender, backed right off. Rob Boston, who has written about the religious right for two decades concluded that “Daniels’ quick retreat” indicates “that the religious right has lost none of its political punch.” Politicians and their vassals understandably wis…

Why Taxing the Rich is the Godly Thing

By Peter Laarman

…rving in this regard that the biblical prophets often used the imagery of drunkenness to evoke a society that oppresses its poorest while the wealthy bask in every luxury. It may not be quite necessary for Obama to follow Amos in upbraiding the filthy rich as “cows of Bashan”—much as I would welcome some prophetic indignation in Obama’s mouth. All he needs to do is present a compelling narrative about how progressive taxation came into being and…

Conviction of FLDS Leader Warren Jeffs Overturned

By Joanna Brooks

…ontinue to fight. In his rise to power after the 2002 death of his father Rulon Jeffs, Warren Jeffs consolidated his personal and political power by exiling from the community and breaking up the families of observant FLDS men and women he considered rivals or critics of his domain. Jeffs’s claim to be a prophet has also been associated with increasingly rigid rules for dress and conduct in the FLDS community and with the withdrawal of FLDS men a…

Time is on Our Side

By Amina Wadud

…ve up imsak as the time marker and stuck with the time of fajr. In today’s world, Muslims all over have printed schedules to mark the precise time for suhur, the time of the fajr prayer (as well as the other 4 prayers), the time of sun rise, and the time formaghrib, the prayer at sun set. Especially maghrib, because that’s when the fasting ends. Precise, detailed. When my kids were younger they would check the calendar and get the sunset time prog…

Of Mosques and Men

By Amina Wadud

…is ritual reading, but it is not the same as reading and contemplating the words of revelation, reflecting on their meanings. Reflection can be a distraction from just reading. I cannot simple go from one word to the next, one passage to the next, I am caught out of momentum to say, “hmmm”, “yes, that’s right” or,” oh yeah, I forgot about it that way.” To assist me in keeping pace with the reading part over the reflection part, I started reading a…

How the Christian Right Can Save America from Donald Trump

By Sarah Posner

…n the Christian Post); Digging Into Donald Trump’s Religion (D.C. Innes in World, calling Trump’s refusal to name a favorite Bible verse in a Bloomberg interview his “Sarah Palin moment” for evangelicals, referring to when Palin told Katie Couric she reads “all” the newspapers); Conservative Columnist Says Donald Trump is Scamming Christians for Vote, Urges Conservative Evangelicals to ‘Wake Up’ (Gospel Herald referring to Kirsten Powers’ op-ed in…

Glenn Beck’s Political Theology

By Daniel Schultz

…osition to change, the fundamental inability (or refusal) to conceive of a world that is meaningfully different than the one we presently exist in, that marks the Tea Party theology, notwithstanding all the far-right religious “celebrities” Beck put on stage over the weekend. Ignore all the bouncing balls, what you need to know about the Tea Party faith is that it’s in an unchanging, overwhelmingly powerful God. It’s also in an unchanging God who…