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Three Cheers for Mormon Support of Same-Sex Legislation? Not So Fast

By Chrissy Stroop

…r their rights (to very little fanfare and often to dismissal or apathy at best), this provision bothers me deeply. In any case, RFMA is very much not the Equality Act, a bill that would provide sweeping non-discrimination protections for queer Americans that has languished in Congress for years. It’s a defensive piece of legislation, a protection of the status quo rather than a step forward. If America were truly a functional democracy, we could…

AIG: On Charisma and Routinization of Greed

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…t simplicity and broad comparative reach. The prophet, Weber suggested, is best defined as the unique bearer of charisma. No sooner had Weber offered his “unified theory” of the prophet than he subdivided the essential concept again, noting that there were two very different kinds of charisma with which he had to deal. On the one hand, there is the charisma of personality; on the other, there is the charisma of office. The two forms rarely, if eve…

Is Liberalism Islamic?: An Interview with Mustafa Akyol

By Haroon Moghul

…y in unprecedented levels. I also think that today liberalism presents the best medium for Muslims to live Islam in the various ways that they understand it. Let me push you a little bit here. I would argue that most interpretations of Islam place a strong emphasis on the social, the communal, often above the individual—and if we stress the liberation of the individual from larger collectives, does Islam play any role in the great social questions…

The Right Wing Bible and the Politics of Impotence

By Christopher B. Hays

…and Chua’s exhortations. What Chua’s philosophy boiled down to is: Be the best, kick all those lazy kids’ butts. But if winning itself is not enough motivation (if the answer to life is not being honored by playing Carnegie Hall and getting the high-paying, prestigious job), it’s not clear what sort of motivation there would be. Similarly, if you’re not innately inspired to want to kick China’s butt, if you ask why?, you are likely to be met with…

No God but Country: The Religion of John McCain Has Something Important to Tell Us

By Kathryn Lofton

…d.” When asked whether he has participated in adult baptism, a ritual requisite for converts to the Convention, McCain says no, calling it “a personal thing,” adding on another occasion that “I didn’t find it necessary to do so for my spiritual needs.” McCain’s decision not to participate in a major ritual of Baptist practice may be laziness, may be diffidence, or it may be a desire to evade hypocrisy. If I don’t take communion when I attend an Ep…

We May Be Sacrificing Our Children to the God of the Gun — But it’s Not That the God Requires the Deaths

By Stephanie Frank

…ur Moloch,” written just after the Newtown murders nearly a decade ago, is best understood. He wrote, That horror [of the Sandy Hook shootings] cannot be blamed just on one unhinged person. It was the sacrifice we as a culture made, and continually make, to our demonic god. We guarantee that crazed man after crazed man will have a flood of killing power readily supplied him. We have to make that offering, out of devotion to our Moloch, our god. Th…

Maybe Trump Should Pray About His Problems With Religious Voters?

By Daniel Schultz

…ll down 61% of the vote, but yikes. If you’re a Republican, that’s a scary number. You might reasonably intuit Trump’s miserable numbers with Catholic voters are the result of his poor showing with Hispanic voters, or stem from his “virulent” immigration policy. Certainly, getting scolded by Pope Francis or the likes of Cardinal Dolan (himself no left-winger) doesn’t help. But in fact, it’s white Catholics who have turned against Trump. He’s reall…

Gingrich and Hagee, End-Times Buddies

By Sarah Posner

…an army of one million men armed with 1500 Abram Tanks which are America’s best. We sold them to Egypt along with hundreds of our latest and greatest fighter jets because Egypt was controlled by Mubarak who was America’s friend. Can you imagine what Israel faces with Iran, Egypt, Syria, Turkey and Russia coming after them? The prophet Ezekiel clearly predicted this battle thousands of years ago and you are watching the players get into position…

What This All-Star Christian Movie Gets Wrong About Christianity

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…spired by a movie in which Christian belief and behavior works out for the best for everyone. Presumably, that feels good; perhaps it gives them ideas for how they might live out their faith in the vastly more complicated real world. Ah, but that’s the real problem. “Do You Believe?” is not up to the task of helping its viewers discern the differences between its movie-version of the world, and the world they live in. And that’s a big deal precise…

Will Trump’s Weakness Threaten White Evangelical Support?

By Kristin Kobes Du Mez

…. At first glance, evangelical support for Trump appeared transactional at best, hypocritical at worst. In fact, evangelical support for Trump was consistent with a longstanding preference for militant masculine leadership. Militant white masculinity has always been at the center of family-values evangelicalism. In the 1960s and 1970s, evangelicals insisted that strong, patriarchal authority would defend families against the incursions of feminism…