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Breaking Up with God: I Didn’t Lose My Faith, I Left It

By Sarah Sentilles

…or Humanity, a nonprofit that uses the resources of design to solve social problems, visited my brother’s class in architecture school and described one of the first design contests he held. He asked people to come up with the best design possible for a mobile AIDS clinic for a town in a country in Africa. He posted the deadline, and he waited. He didn’t think anyone would submit anything, but on the day of the contest’s deadline, a delivery man f…

Why the World Needs Religious Studies

By Nathan Schneider

…of these are techniques for working through deeply controversial, divisive problems. Walking around the AAR each year, I feel like I’m seeing Isaiah’s vision about wolves and lambs coming true—aside from the considerable academic bickering, of course. I love it. There are people in collars and saffron robes and turbans among the tweedy professors. It’s full of rational and fascinating discussions about the loftiest subjects that anyone can think o…

Is it Kosher Now? The Evolution of Kashrut in the Wake of the Agriprocessor Fiasco

By Benjamin Weiner

…t is the largest such kosher facility in the world, though given the legal problems it now faces that distinction may soon be conjugated in the past tense, if it isn’t already. When the Feds raided last May 12th, they arrested close to four hundred illegal immigrants. More upsetting were the subsequent revelations that these workers had been laboring in illegally dangerous conditions, that some were underage, and that some claimed to have been sub…

‘Biblical’ Stoning About Mental Health, Money, & Mormonism Too

By Joanna Brooks

…capable of gauging the consequences of his choices? Did his mental health problems and predatory instincts propel his attraction to religion and religious community in general and Mormonism in particular? Spinning the story as yet another evidence of the murderous homophobia of religion—as some bloggers have tried to do—may be immediately satisfying, especially to LGBT people who have experienced belief-motivated homophobia and who live with th…

Democratic Egypt Tests a Divided Israel

By Shaul Magid

…Jews or Israeli Arabs (Muslim and Christian). In short, Israel has its own problems if it wants to remain committed to democracy. And yet, in Israel democracy still rules, the press is still free, the courts still function, and human rights is still a value in principle—if not always in practice. Part of the belief in democracy is that it is by nature a moderating force (one can even see this with Hezbollah in Lebanon). We cannot support democrati…

Evangelicals and “Orphan Care”

By Daniel Schultz

…come with baggage: there’s traumatic history, medical issues, psychiatric problems, cultural differences, and so on. As if all that weren’t bad enough, as it happens most of the world’s “orphans” aren’t really orphans at all. Rather, they’re children whose families can no longer provide for their needs. That can become quite a problem when you’re adopting from overseas. Or, as in our case, what it means is that the kids really have two families….

What is ‘The Square’ that Beat Mubarak?

By H.A. Hellyer

…ess about the situation; and most of all, it existed in the innocent lives that were lost. Egypt now has a huge challenge in front of it—one that may well be larger than the one they have just overcome. The expectation on the part of many is that all of the problems of Egypt will now be solved—but disappointment will almost surely follow. Yet one hopes that the people of Egypt have shown themselves what is possible when people work together for a…

Fundamentalist-Led Texas History Standards Get ‘D’ from Conservative Think Tank

By Lauri Lebo

…eptionalism. And politics do figure heavily in the resulting TEKS. But the problems begin with the very structure of the document, an unwieldy tangle of social studies categories and arbitrary thematic subdivisions. Or this one: The conservative majority on the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) has openly sought to use the state curriculum to promote its political priorities, molding the telling of the past to justify its current views and ai…

Creationism and Evolution are Competing ‘Myths’

By Kelly E. Hayes

…d experiment—all while simultaneously blaming evolution for various social problems. At the same time, they also try to elevate the status of their preferred model by presenting its claims as compatible with science, a discourse that currently enjoys a level of authority, credibility, and prestige that was formerly the exclusive prerogative of religion. Simply put, the evolutionist narrative functions as an established myth while the creationist v…

TN Conservatives: Government Butt Out… Government Butt In

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…ind of government policy has worked with the military. There are plenty of problems with this. First, as someone who has been closeted at work before, it gets tiring avoiding pronouns or simply not talking about what you and your partner did over the weekend for fear of being “found out.” Also, I’ve discovered that co-workers actually respect you more when you’re open and honest about your sexual orientation, even if they don’t agree. If you can’t…