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Václav Havel: Democracy as Spiritual Discipline

By Peter Montgomery

…icians have a moral obligation to call their followers to be true to their best selves rather than pander to or inflame their followers’ worst instincts: Time and time again I have been persuaded that a huge potential of goodwill is slumbering within our society. It’s just that it’s incoherent, suppressed, confused, crippled and perplexed — as though it does not know what to rely on, where to begin, where or how to find meaningful outlets. In suc…

The Rise and Fall of an American Gang: Religion as Camouflage?

By Spencer Dew

…. There’s a series of huge stories here, and this book—while certainly the best resource on the subject—is hurt by the sheer range of material it has to address. The book is alternately fascinating and frustrating. What we learn of Jeff Fort’s childhood doesn’t mention religious upbringing, though he had siblings named “Maryam, Kadija… Kaaba, Akaba, and Aki.” Similar gaps riddle the narrative. “An Illinois politician invited Fort to attend the 196…

Debating God: Atheist and Evangelical Face Off at Notre Dame

By Nathan Schneider

…erdict, and a gavel. Sometimes God debates will end with an audience poll, but not this one. The question wasn’t finally settled, and still the debaters each did what they do best, despite each other. Sometimes, at a God debate or a football game, the best you can hope for is a decent after-party….

For Love or Threat: Pro-Life Prayer Includes Names, Photos of Abortion-Rights Advocates

By Alana Massey

…s. When asked about the change, Scheidler says, “We searched for the three best photographs we could find because we wanted pictures where people would see the humanity of these people.” Throughout our conversation, he returned to the Christian tenets of compassionate understanding and the belovedness of all people before God, indicating a sincerity that often goes unnoticed in a movement frequently characterized by its violent history. But it is…

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…

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…

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…

Blank Sabbath: Sens. Sponsor Bill to Curb Wage Theft

By Peter Laarman

…anic model of social organization. Theologian Walter Brueggemann is at his best in describing Pharoah’s Egypt—and contemporary America—as a disordered place of unlimited exploitation and exhaustion. In this context the greatest blessing given at Sinai is the Sabbath principle and all of the related instruction about learning to share abundance. But of course the challenge facing those wandering Israelites—and still facing us—is the powerful appeal…

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…

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

By Kathryn Lofton

…ent, and maybe it matters to you. McCain has noted several times that the “number one issue… that people should [use to] make a selection of the president of the United States [is] will this person carry on in the Judeo-Christian principle that has made this nation the greatest experiment in the history of mankind?” A person’s faith is, according to McCain, an “important part of our qualifications to lead.” Bracketing his dubious grasp of constitu…