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Even After an Obama Victory Reports of the Death of the Religious Right are Greatly Exaggerated

…has been a surprisingly vibrant discussion surrounding the potential redundancy of the phrase ‘frozen tundra.’ The New York Times’ sports pages reported on Lake Superior State University’s eagerly awaited List of “Words Banished From the Queen’s English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness, 2003 edition,” which banished ‘frozen tundra’ for being redundant (missing the irony, perhaps, that this isn’t a word, it’s a phrase). LSSU’s 2004 edit…

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LDS General Conference in the “Mormon Moment”

…wers of Jesus Christ. And without dismissing real theological distinctions between Mormonism and mainline Protestantism—and there are some—the Mormon experience suggests that the dominant usage of the term “Christian” in American discourse is not as a descriptor of the way an individual regards Jesus Christ, but as a political and social term used to distinguish sanctioned branches of Christianity and withhold approval from others, often in the se…

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Exploiting Health Care Debate to Restrict Abortion?

…dering as Wallis and a few others prepare to push Congress and the White House for further concessions. “[The president’s] commitment to these principles,” said Wallis, “means we can now work together to make sure that they are consistently and diligently applied to any final health care legislation.” For Wallis, that means that “no person should be forced to pay for someone else’s abortion and that public funds cannot be used to pay for elective…

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What Do ‘The Christians’ Believe? Easter Reflections from a Non-Christian

…ightly charges against priests who have taken a vow of celibacy and are accused of sexually abusing children and misusing their power. Although it is not yet clear how Pope Benedict XVI will deal with these charges in the long run, his recent homily referring to the “petty gossip of dominant opinion” glossed over the seriousness of this scandal and what role, if any, he had in how the situation was mishandled at the Vatican, reminding his follower…

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Time to Reject the “We’re All Sinners” Defense of Religious Conservatives

…t of powerhouse programs like Florida State and Auburn. Some are there because they used drugs. One was charged with burglary. Another punched a woman in a bar. Football players spout self-serving platitudes all the time. “No relationship is perfect” is how Ray Rice explained the video of him striking his then-fiancee in an elevator in 2014. But Johnson isn’t trying to justify himself. He doesn’t use our shared imperfection to paint over his sins….

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Why I Wrote the Freedom Seder And Why It’s Still Necessary 50 Years After Dr. King’s Assassination

…still higher pyramids of profit, I realize that never again can the Seder freeze. Now, again, we need a new Freedom Seder. “In every generation …” Indeed. What makes time and life into a spiral, instead of a straight line or an endless circle, is setting aside time for reflection, rest, renewal. That renewal-time—Shabbat, the Sabbath; each pause to bless Creation and say I-Thou before we make use of it; the Great Shabbat when, we are taught, we m…

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To Get Through This Time We’ll Have to Shred the ‘Racial Contract’ and Choose Solidarity Over Sacrifice

…they understand this as a public health intervention addressing the root causes of racial inequality. And there’s also an important difference between these protests and those in previous eras. They are decidedly multi-racial. The demand to defund the police and reinvest in social goods that address social problems while redefining safety strikes at the heart of the racial contract that citizens in Minneapolis and across the nation are attempting…

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Lady Gaga’s Secret Religion

…nalogous logic to the various facets of her public personae, including her use of occult symbols. Notwithstanding the worries of the conspiracy theorists, Lady Gaga’s symbols do not hide some deeper truth. They are part of the total simulation called “Lady Gaga.” In fact, the occluded eyes, sinister postures and such are no longer symbols at all. They are elements of surface style. The secret that these “symbols” conceal is that there is no truth…

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Queer Religion and Community at HRC Summer Institute

…come.) Sacred borderlands The truly unprecedented thing was, for lack of a better term, the creation of coalition on the axes of race and sexuality. It didn’t hurt that of the fourteen students who were selected to be in the program, eight were people of color. Not surprisingly only four of the eighteen teacher/mentors were, and this generational shift bodes well for the future of Queer/LGBT religious movements. And it also didn’t hurt that the wh…

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Election Day: Hope, Heartbreak, Naiveté, and Studs Terkel

…n order to affect the election. On the state level, too, religion is being used to promote discrimination: Proposition 8 in California seeks to annihilate gay marriage rights, though they have been confirmed by the California Supreme Court, by amending the California Constitution. The Prop. 8 campaign has effectively played on fear and the ingrained religious notions of marriage that most people retain, no matter what religion—or even lack of reli…

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