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America’s Savior: Lincolnolatry’s Hidden Cost

By Peter Laarman

…dentified with the rough-hewn Nobody who rose to become a real Somebody, almost godlike in his towering moral majesty. Sure, we were also fed the usual pap about George Washington’s flawless character, but our sense of who this Washington was remained distant and blurry. We already knew that GW’s story had been carefully burnished beyond credibility. E.g., we knew that the attributed line, “I cannot tell a lie,” was itself a lie. But Mr. Lincoln w…

“Debt” is a Spiritual Word

By Donna Schaper

…ven inside a debt ceiling “crisis.” Right now it feels as if the energy of most Americans is that of a barn-bound horse, or a rootbound plant. We are wound around the economy as though it were our lifeblood. People aren’t working, even if we are working. We are looking for a rebirth of wonder and blessing and engagement. How do you pay off debt? You forgive it in another. You receive the blessing, then, of the poor. Maybe you even stop being so a…

An Architect Reimagines the Synagogue as Ark, Shelter, Floating Fortress

By Kathryn Joyce

…ty, to prevent isolation from society; and that the bimah, or altar, be no more than six steps above the congregation, to curb haughtiness among the clergy. With the basic scriptural requirement of a synagogue being not a building, nor having a rabbi, but merely a quorum of ten Jews, Friedman says that the form of synagogues have a primary democratic impulse. “The basic thing I took away, is that I thought, all these years I’ve been in a synagogue…

Penn Jillette’s Signs You May Already Be an Atheist

By Steve A. Wiggins

…es, e.g.), but he is keenly aware that too many people suffer. Theodicy in motion. In the end, most of Jillette’s Ten “Suggestions” are not too far from the mark of those in Exodus or Deuteronomy. For instance, instead of taking the fifth commandment as honoring your parents, his “fifth suggestion” adds a hedge thick enough to make a Pharisee proud: “Be there for your family. Love your parents, your partner, and your children. (Love is deeper than…

Wherein An Elected Official Gets His Holiday Miracles Mixed Up

By Sarah Posner

…illiams said at a Chabad Lubavitch-sponsored Chanukah menorah lighting ceremony, “Jesus is the reason for the season.” Williams pointed the finger at the Chabad rabbis for his blunder: The city councilor said he referenced Jesus Christ, whose birth is celebrated every Dec. 25 by Christians worldwide but not by Jews, after participants in the ceremony mentioned “the bright light” of 2,000 years ago – an allusion to Christ, according to Williams. “T…

Play to Extinction: Religious Groups Unite Against Predatory Gambling

By Frederick Clarkson

…that state-sponsored casino gambling is incompatible with constitutional democracy itself. This argument is being championed by eminent historian of the civil rights movement Taylor Branch, who says that raising revenue via state-supported gambling addiction is a betrayal of the citizens and an avoidance of critical questions about our democracy: what do we want our government to do and how we are going to pay for it? “State-sponsored predatory ga…

Partisanship Is The New Civil Religion

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…ssing strange. Most Christians are untroubled (and unchallenged) by the Sermon on the Mount’s revolutionary idea that you should “pray for your enemies.” That kind of phrase trips all too lightly off the tongue. And if I were to make a syrupy observation that this means Christians need to pray for Al-Qaeda, then I suspect that most would shrug at the oddity of the idea, but grant that yes, we should pray that they will be brought back into right r…

Bad News for LGBT Anglicans, Mormons, Adventists, Norwegians, Russians, Georgians, Egyptians, Kuwaitis, Saudis…

By Peter Montgomery

…he brutal new criminal penalties imposed on gay people in those countries. Mormons: Apostle Affirms Commitment to One Man-One Woman Marriage Mormon Apostle Neil Andersen, speaking at a biannual national conference in Salt Lake City, affirmed the church’s opposition to same-sex marriage. “While many governments and well-meaning individuals have redefined marriage, the Lord has not,” said Andersen, an Apostle of the Quorum of the Twelve, the sec…

Are American Christians “Persecuted”?

By Eric C. Miller

…t’s put that cheap argument to bed. At Patheos, Benjamin Corey shakes that cheap argument awake: Can we stop complaining about this bogus idea that American Christians are persecuted now? I mean, really. Can we stop? The world needs us to turn from ourselves and focus on this real persecution, because it’s evil and must be exposed and stopped. However, our own self-centeredness as Americans is getting in the way of the discussion on real anti-Chri…

The Economy is Racism: Ending Race-Based Economic Violence is the Real Challenge of This Moment

By Peter Laarman

…rs who no longer need to report to offices but whose output can be closely monitored remotely. And yes, investors understand that the pandemic will damage or entirely eliminate certain sectors. But that’s okay, too, as long as the Federal Reserve is standing by to provide unlimited long-term assistance to big capital even as the losers drop away. I say all this to make the point that the new normal—with pain and misery at the bottom and staggering…