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Argue-by-Number: A Suggestion for the Church

By Mark D. Jordan

…moment marked by anguish and anxiety. “Here is a secret about how I love. Will you still love me after hearing it?” Or persuasion comes about when a respected church leader—a pastor, a teacher, a musician—can no longer keep a false silence in good Christian conscience. These are the speeches that persuade, not the arguments-by-number. So why do we repeat them? One strategic justification is that we progressives are regrettably obliged to answer th…

Give Me That Old-Time Ex-Gay Snake Oil

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…us right yells about how they don’t want to think of us “that way,” the trailer for the film is positively voyeuristic! Let’s face it, gay sex is completely titillating to heterosexuals, especially conservative Christian heterosexuals. They can’t stop thinking about us in bed! Remind me again, who’s the perv here? If the number of partners one has, the amount of time one spends in clubs, and what kind of sexual abuse one has suffered in their life…

Some Thoughts on Richard Dawkins’ Terrible Tweet

By Haroon Moghul

…d, in the name of scientific materialism and in the interests of atheism, millions upon millions of people. Persons of faith were especially targeted, by a regime that at its end had murdered more than any other. (Like Islamic extremism, its actual motives may have been quite different.) But there is a fourth hole in this terrible Swiss Cheese of a tweet. What if you don’t produce good science because you can’t? Describing his (adopted) country’s…

Why The Book of Mormon (the Musical) is Awesomely Lame

By Jared Farmer

…of Mormon’s black people are rural, backwards, poor, violent, uneducated, illiterate, superstitious, gullible, hopeless, diseased. They have maggots. Warlords mutilate female genitalia and rape babies to cure their AIDS (a now outdated reference to a folk-belief about “virgin-cleansing” that began in South Africa). One of the musical’s running gags—a young female convert believes she can use a typewriter to send text-messages—is simply groundless…

Presidential Pep Talks and the Religion of Fear: How did an Uncontroversial Speech Become a National Controversy?

By Eric Reitan

…d have won. The divine tyrant will withdraw His favor. And all manner of evils and horrors will begin to take hold. When and where the religion of fear dominates, party politics can become a template onto which stark in-group/out-group ideologies can be imposed. And the stakes of political contests can be represented as monumental: The fate of the world depends on the right side winning. And if the wrong side achieves ascendancy, the message is cl…

Something So Broken: What’s Frightening About Beasts of the Southern Wild

By Michael Pasquier

…score, and “a distrustworthy slickness reminiscent of a British Petroleum oil spill clean-up commercial.” Much of the applause is directed at the film’s heroine, Quvenzhané Wallis, the six-year-old non-professional actor who grew up in a Louisiana bayou town and who may soon become the youngest Academy Award nominee of all time. Sharing much of the admiration, and the object of much of the criticism, is the film’s director, co-writer, and composer…

Double Helix: Who’s Your Daddy?

By Arri Eisen

…his slaves. Now, the $20 in-home paternity test (+$120 for analysis) is available over the counter from Sorenson Genomics at your local drugstore. And it’s selling like hotcakes. According to the Web site, complete with the iconic 1-800 number and attractive female operator with headset, the IDENTIGENE test is “Fast. Accurate. Confidential.” It’s not the speed, accuracy, nor confidentiality that worry me so much (although plenty of problems lurk t…

Orthodox Rabbi Imitates Pat Robertson

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…agenda forcing the highlighting of homosexuals and homosexuality on an unwilling military. This is the equivalent of the spiritual rape of our military to satisfy the most extreme and selfish cadre of President Obama’s kooky coalition. When it comes to “kooky” Levin knows his stuff. His release goes on to mimic Robertson’s past statements about gays and lesbians – and the alleged acceptance they are currently enjoying in the United States – as th…

Why #FreeBritney is an #Exvangelical Cause

By R.L. Stollar

…force their adult children into conservatorships, many do force their juvenile children through conversion therapy, “troubled teen” camps, worldview institutes, nouthetic counseling, homeschooling—anything they can do to control their children. The extremes evangelical parents will go to in order to forcefully mold their children seamlessly complements the extreme power granted to conservators. “Evangelicals are so convinced that they have the abs…

Pastor of Kentucky Church Severed From Baptists Over LGBT Inclusion: Not Activism, Just Honesty

By Mike Greer

…d cultural experience. It took a lot of hard work but we reached a place a number of years ago where, while things are far from perfect, things work. We have learned how to be in community with others who are radically different from us. About three years ago we realized that in order to be authentic to gay and lesbian individuals in the pews and in our community we needed to clarify how we were going to be in relationship with these folks. I foun…