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Updated: G-O-D Plays a Bit Part in First GOP Debate

By Daniel Schultz

…Kasich managed to come across as less-crazy-than-the-rest. He seems to be running for Vice President, and doing a pretty good job of it. Rubio surprised with his intelligence, Walker was a nothingburger, Cruz and Paul stumbled, and dear God, how many more of them are there? The New Republic‘s Brian Beutler summed things up pretty well: What you saw tonight—and the vastness of the field made this tension more vivid—are several candidates who want…

Group Behind King James Bible Congressional Resolution Thinks Obama Might Be Antichrist

By Sarah Posner

…e of conspiracy theories, including the evils of environmentalism, the one-world ambitions of the U.N., and the connection between the Israel-Palestine peace process and the possible end-times date of December 21, 2012, Levesque read at length from the Book of Revelation. Then, with all that great fire and brimstone in his audience’s mind, he observed that Obama’s motorcade vehicle is called “the Beast,” that Barack “means thunder and lightning” a…

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

By Kaya Oakes

…nent 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 previous week when he got into a protr…

The Faith-Based Militia: When is Terrorism ‘Christian’?

By Frederick Clarkson

…and local law enforcement authorities deemed to be ‘foot soldiers’ of… the new World Order.” Of course, ‘foot soldiers for the New world Order’ does not help anyone understand that the Christian warriors of the Hutaree saw themselves as fighting an end-times battle with the agents of the Antichrist. For their purposes, they may not need to. But even as the feds sought to elide references to religion, they certainly opened the door to draw on the f…

The Clenched Fist of Truthiness: Why Religion Won’t Fix This

By Daniel Schultz

…hardly think that condemning violence is inciting violence,” she told the New York Times when asked to comment on the video. “I think the ad is very clear — there are excerpts from actual riots that are included in the ad, and that’s exactly what I’m addressing.” https://twitter.com/martynlenoble/status/880285143105118208 https://twitter.com/DLoesch/status/880287503265280000 Most Americans root their moral precepts in faith, or at least they sa…

The Blasphemy of ISIS: A 7-Point Pro-Guide to Islam(ism)

By Haroon Moghul

….’ It is, at least, until you begin to pay attention, at which point these words, like all words, begin to come apart in our hands. The first might just mean Muslim-majority, which is plainly true, whereas the second might mean that Albania somehow conforms to an alleged Islamic political ideal. To make matters worse, calling things ‘Islamic’ is a peculiarity of the modern age. In fact, the Qur’an never once uses the word ‘Islamic’—and, so far as…

LDS Church Asserts Trademark of “Mormon”

By Holly Welker

…g website that tried to launch earlier this month, has no right to use the word in its name.* The Utah-based church insists it has a claim on the terms “Mormon,” “LDS” and “Latter-day Saint” that supplants anyone else’s right to the terms, but people just keep using them how they want: Warren Jeffs is known as an FLDS leader; people who quit going to church still call themselves Mormon because it’s an accurate cultural descriptor even if it convey…

“Giving Godhead”: A Bloody Vision of Religion’s Deepest Influence

By Spencer Dew

In August, a poetry review appeared in the New York Times. Written by Thomas Simmons of the University of Iowa, it declared that Dylan Krieger’s Giving Godhead “will be the best collection of poetry to appear in English in 2017.” Simmons then went on to describe Krieger’s blend of “the religious with the obscene” as “a new form of the grotesque that marries autobiography to personal and national trauma,” calling the book “easily among the most in…

Forget History Channel’s The Bible, Meet Omar

By Haroon Moghul

…econd Caliph of Islam. Under Omar, the first Muslim polity expanded into Jerusalem, Damascus, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, and Central Asia. (Muhammad died in 632; Omar was Caliph from 634-644.) That’s some good television. It’s also surprisingly nuanced, considering what I grew up learning in Sunday School. Omar is one of the so-called “musalsilat,” series that are produced specifically for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Every night, after a) drinking,…

Calling Trump’s Bee-Smitten Christians: You Think You Know What “Koinonia” Means?

By Peter Laarman

…al treat, and what do we do? We politicize it immediately, of course. Within hours of the Bee’s wrap, Christianity Today’s headline was bragging that all good Christians (meaning evangelicals) who watched found it “easy” to relate to the winning word. Um…I kinda doubt that. But what I don’t doubt is that the millions of white evangelicals who still stand solidly behind Trump, even on separating immigrant families—families made up overwhelmingly…