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Evangelicals Struggle With the Role of Churches in Society

By Omri Elisha

…rns for the welfare of society, many conservative evangelicals harbor deep reservations about supporting any programs that seem to deprioritize evangelism or run the risk of becoming too liberal or too secular. Socially engaged evangelicals counteract those concerns by insisting that faith-based activism can ideally be a vehicle for greater evangelism, not a distraction from it. But they often face strong ideological resistance and logistical cons…

What if Israel Were in Germany? An Alternate History

By Haroon Moghul

…mentalists from the Rocky Mountain Independent Territories hijack four jet planes and fly them into buildings in Baghdad and Riyadh. In retaliation, the Arabs capture Denver and shoot up the surrounding countryside, but after failing to locate the terrorist mastermind, they decide to open a second front in the now global War on Terror. The obvious target would be the Evangelical Republic of Texas, which supplied the hijackers with their passports,…

Romney Stands Up to Bryan Fischer at Values Voters Summit

By Joanna Brooks

…ects on the hurt dished out to Mormon girls at her high school and her own reservations about LDS people. “I’m starting to wonder what I’ve been so afraid of,” Weiseth writes. The post has gone viral among Mormon readers. It certainly touched me. Perhaps it can help bring about greater dialogue between evangelical Christians and Mormons. No one should underestimate the strength and longevity of anti-Mormon sentiment in the south. (On Monday, I’ll…

Do Atheists Belong in the Interfaith Movement?

By Chris Stedman

…e interfaith movement. Despite Galef and Speckhardt’s serious concerns and reservations, they have been actively involved in intentionally interfaith efforts, and I suspect their participation has informed their conclusions about the idea. However, those speaking out against atheist involvement in the interfaith movement are, at the moment, a bit more numerous (just a couple of examples, with several others to follow). As far as I can tell based o…

Insurance Coverage for Abortion in Health Care Reform Threatened

By Carlton Veazey

…g children. This a largely pro-choice country at heart—even those who have reservations about abortion are firmly and consistently in favor of options that include family planning, contraception, and sexuality education, and in favor of women making decisions with dignity and minimal governmental interference. Insurance coverage for pregnancy termination has had a low profile until now because it was not threatened. Now that it is, it’s critical t…

ABC’s Good Christian Bitches Makes Feminists of Religious Right

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…an alert and is petitioning ABC to drop the show: Disney-owned ABC has no reservations about creating hate speech against Christians, but you can be sure they would never consider a show called “Good Muslim B-tches” or “Good Jewish B-tches.” With a title like “Good Christian B-tches,” you can imagine what kind of show it will be. Even if they change the title, the content will still mock people of faith. Okay, this is fantastic. I mean, how lovel…

Pawlenty Stars in American Civil Religion: The Movie

By Michael J. Altman

…ression, blood, and violence beneath the freedom it proclaims. Pawlenty gives us Martin Luther King Jr. but not the church bombings, police dogs, and fire hoses. He gives us a quaint picture of horses and wagons but no images of American Indian removal, Indian wars, and shrinking reservations. He gives us the fall of the Berlin Wall but not McCarthyism. It’s an ad for a book (a book that isn’t selling that well, apparently) and not a history less…

Web 8.0: The Return of the Human

By Beatrice Marovich

…w religion” or the “nerd religion” of cybernetics. He’s troubled by techno-spiritualities like the Singularity—the quest for an etherealized digital promised land. With the rhetorical flourish of a biblical prophet he charges, in his bestseller You Are Not a Gadget (2010), that our technology has begun to dominate us. What we should be demanding, he argues, is that it bow to our needs and desires. What he despises most about today’s “cybernetic to…

A Reforming Tradition Struggles With Change

By Brent Hege

…on and are taking public steps to leave the ELCA or to remain with certain reservations. A dissenting group called Lutheran CORE (formerly Coalition for Reform, now Coalition for Renewal) met in assembly in September of 2009 to discuss the possibility of forming a new Lutheran church body in North America. Those discussions resulted in the announcement of the North American Lutheran Church (NALC), which will include disaffected “confessional” Luth…

By the Way: Fractured Religious Right Endorses McCain

By Randall Balmer

…of discussion, and to no one’s surprise, the group decided to shelve their reservations about John McCain and endorse him in the fall campaign. “The alternative is so bad,” Phyllis Schlafly declared, “we must support John McCain.” The meeting was called by Mathew Staver, dean of the law school at Liberty University. Those in attendance included Phil Burress, president of Citizens for Community Values in Ohio, Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther Ki…