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What the Hell is Wrong With Us? A Muslim Response to America’s Failure to Change

By Haroon Moghul

…ask the reader of the Qur’an, over and over again, to reflect, to use her best judgment, to make her best effort, and to learn from others? If the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, was the last Prophet—and Islam certainly insists on as much—then everything he communicated has to be universal enough to be meaningful but flexible enough to reflect the nuances and characteristics of different experiences. This is one thing a lot of people don’t u…

“I’ll Pray For You”—Powerful or Pointless?

By Christine Wicker

…mforts us while distancing us from the need to do anything else. During my times as a newspaper reporter, I once asked a former nun named Elizabeth Espersen, who directed Dallas’ Thanksgiving Square, to give me an example of the best prayer. Jesus had already directed Christians on how to pray, of course. Since, no one in Dallas, Texas, was going to challenge that. I was looking for second best. Elizabeth’s answer changed my entire framework for p…

Missing the Extra Point: The Real Cause of Tebow Fever

By Carter Turner

…quarterback… and winning games, often against great odds while playing his best at the most opportune times. For a large segment of the population (43 percent according to a recent poll), Tebow’s success is proof that God intervenes in history, even in football games. For these people of faith, particularly evangelical Christians, it’s completely reasonable that God would intervene on Tebow’s behalf. Doesn’t God reward faith? Lord knows Tebow has…

Obamunism? The Traditional Values Coalition Coins a Term

By Bill Berkowitz

…um Ministries, recently announced that the winner of its fifth annual the “Best of Festival” Jubilee Award—with its $101,000 cash prize—was The Widow’s Might, a 101-minute film written and directed by 19-year-old John Moore of Kaufman, Texas, with David Heustis and Jeff Moreland serving as producers. The film is “a feature length comedy-adventure that tells the fictional story of how aspiring filmmakers came to the aid of an elderly widow who face…

Netflix’s Iranian ‘Messiah’ Is a Gift to Trump and His Evangelical Base

By Tony Keddie

…ssia’s Middle Eastern allies than Gog itself. Tim LaHaye, co-author of the best-selling Left Behind series, and Ed Hindson, Dean Emeritus of the divinity school at Liberty University, devoted much of their 2007 book Global Warning to framing Iran as an evil Islamic threat to Israel, and through Israel to Christianity. Like other evangelical apocalypticists such as Joel Rosenberg (author of The Twelfth Imam series), LaHaye and Hindson cast the Iran…

UPDATED: Turning Catholic School’s Anti-Mask Theology Into a Faith Argument is Just Fine With Religious Right (Even if it is Based on Garbage Theology)

By Daniel Schultz

…no idea what it means to love and serve one’s neighbor. It’s a strategy making for great P.R. and fundraising, but it won’t do much to shift the political landscape, or the case before the Michigan courts. Sadly, not much will, given the intransigence of some people. Sometimes, as the Hebrew prophets knew, the best call is simply to get out of the way and announce the consequences to come. In this case, that probably means a whole bunch of people…

Eyes on the Prize, Rainbow People! A Post-DOMA Challenge

By Peter Laarman

…e to make common cause with low-wage workers. She and her spouse are small-time farmers in the Central Valley: in that context they can feel how wrong it would be for them to say “thank you very much” to the Supremes and then proceed to ignore the economic struggles of their neighbors. But the phrase “saved the best for last” thoughtlessly suggests that the other SCOTUS decisions bearing on the 14th and 15th amendments were good or acceptable deci…

How Do Christians, Atheists Compare on Muslim Tolerance?

By Darren E. Sherkat

…l Social Surveys, a high quality scientific survey. Grouping the data over time enables clear inferences about the level of tolerance found in relatively small groups like atheists (3.1% of the 5425 respondents who were asked these items in this time period). I use a scale of tolerance of minorities developed by Sam Stouffer in the 1950s, then applied to loathed minority groups like communists, racists, atheists, and now Muslims. The specific item…

Vigil Planned in Wake of Suicide by 17-Year-Old
Gay Mormon

By Joanna Brooks

…After his death, students at his Ogden-area high school wore their Sunday best to school to remember him. A local United Church of Christ is donating the candles for the vigil. Organizer Marian Edmonds, pastor of City of Hope Church in Salt Lake City and organizer of the OUTReach resource center in Ogden, will staff a table at the event to recruit mentors to help work with LGBT young people to prevent suicide. And Mormons are volunteering to spe…

Black Lives Matter Activists Disrupt Presidential Candidates at Activist Conference

By Daniel Schultz

…long as those needs get the response they deserve. As it happens, even the best of leaders blow it once in a while. The trick is to recover as best you can, while maintaining the human connection. Politicians don’t have to be Jesus, but if you can’t occasionally set the prepared speech aside and invite people to share their suffering, then as a candidate you’re not worth a bucket of warm piss, to use John Nance Garner’s colorful expression. In tha…