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“Own Your Heresy”: The Argument Over Who Gets to Do Public Theology Takes a Sharp Turn

By Kaya Oakes

…On the same evening, a group of prominent Catholic theologians released an open letter to the editor of the New York Times, responding to Douthat’s October 17th column on “The Plot to Change Catholicism.” In the letter, the theologians objected to Douthat’s “view of Catholicism as unapologetically subject to a politically partisan narrative that has very little to do with what Catholicism really is.” Douthat had stirred up trouble on Twitter the p…

Mormon Rejection of Trump Provides Insight into Muslim Extremism

By Haroon Moghul

…Mormons seem to be repelled by everything Trump stands for. They are more open to immigration than he and his base are. They tend to be better-educated, and Trump plays poorly with the more educated. The Church itself has come out strongly against Trump’s anti-Muslim language. And of course Mitt Romney, quite arguably the most prominent Mormon politician in the American landscape, made a strong stand against Trump in a recent speech. (Though this…

Why Scientists Should Be Agnostic: Or, Why Lawrence Krauss Is Still a Windbag

By Andrew Aghapour and Michael Schulson

…riage licenses to same-sex couples has set off a national firestorm (and a number of incisive RD articles). Krauss points out, correctly, that if we allow Davis to use her political station to interfere with government conduct that violates her religious beliefs, we’d also need to extend this privilege to other religious fundamentalists and whatever beliefs they claim to sincerely hold (a point he unfortunately makes using Islam as an example, rei…

Is Sam Harris Really a White Supremacist?

By Andrew Aghapour and Michael Schulson

…rms of white supremacy. Meanwhile, Harris keeps plugging away. He has been open in his disdain for Trump and other Republican candidates. But his critiques of Islam—in their content, in their conclusions, and in their cognitive style—closely resemble the newest flavor of American demagoguery. Where New Atheism and Donald Trump Meet In his December review of Islam and the Future of Tolerance, Aziz criticized Harris for writing that Islamophobic inc…

“Of Kings and Prophets” Producers—a Christian, a Muslim and a Jew—Refuse to Sanitize the Bible

By Reza Aslan, Bill Collage and Adam Cooper

…els that we still confront and struggle with today. We made this choice to open a conversation about how one reconciles faith with the realities of the world—whether in ancient Israel or in the contemporary U.S. We assumed we might be met with some resistance from Biblical literalists, as there is always the chance when dealing with religious material that faith-based audiences might negatively react to our interpretation of scriptural inconsisten…

Why SBC’s Russell Moore Wants Conservative Evangelicals to Be Nicer

By Christine Wicker

…found the same percentage. Although Moore probably wouldn’t agree to those numbers—the Southern Baptist Convention still counts itself as having 15 million members—he is telling his people to stop thinking that America is going their way. It’s clearly not. Don’t try to fit in, he tells his flock. “We’re not to be conformed to the pattern of the world. We’re always to be strangers and exiles in any cultural context,” he preaches. America isn’t a Ch…

Note to GOP Voters: “Political Freedom” Comes With Social Responsibility

By Marcia Pally

…and to the economic guru of the Republican party, Adam Smith. Smith hailed open markets as a way to get commoners up the economic ladder after they’d been dispossessed of land and driven to abysmal, impoverishing factory work. But he insisted that markets flourish when they’re based on “virtue” and responsibility for the commons so that top-down control is not needed. Honesty, discipline, promise-keeping, deferred gratification, thrift, patience,…

3 Reasons the SCOTUS Challenge to Contraceptive Mandate is a “Religious Liberty” Stalking Horse

By Patricia Miller

…rer to provide coverage? Would the spouse be told to go look around on the open market for health insurance? 3) Many Already Cover Contraception without Problems Finally, it’s important to remember that, at least in the case of Catholic non-profits, many already cover contraception for employees and students. Catholic insurance plans also often cover birth control through an administrative work-around, like having Blue Cross/Blue Shield process th…

LDS Church Labels Same-Sex Spouses “Apostates,” Bars Children From Baptism

By Joanna Brooks

…e Mormon community, leaving many Church members confounded by the Church’s open contradiction with closely held tenets of Christianity, including the New Testament’s declaration of unconditional love for and acceptance of children. LDS Church leaders explained Friday that the controversial new policy, modeled on the Church’s treatment of polygamous families and their children, is designed to “protect” children of LGBT parents from experiencing “co…

January 6 protester holds giant image of White Jesus in a Make America Great Again cap.

America Appears to be Heading for a Religious Civil War

By Nilay Saiya

…on elections to sustain their social and political dominance, an outsized number of Christian nationalists see violence as their last hope. These voices have been abetted by the rhetoric of far-right politicians. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia has openly called for a “national divorce,” a phrase deliberately chosen to conjure images of the American Civil War. Former president Donald Trump used the apocalyptic language of a “fina…