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Atheist Nazis? The Pope’s Cheap Atonement

Adam Clayton Powell called it “cheap grace,” but we might call it “cheap atonement”: the effort by sinners to select which sins to acknowledge and repent. Pope Benedict XVI ended his heavily protested visit to England with a heartfelt apology for German bombings of England during the Battle of Britain; though he refused to accept Christian responsibility for the Holocaust, blaming it instead on pagans and atheists. Given that Cardinal Walter Kasp…

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Glenn Beck’s Cheap Grace

…way from the hard work of repentance, who tickle our ears with promises of cheap grace, and offer a vision of the cross of Jesus that has nothing to say to the crosses, and lynching trees, of history. But, if we do, we will be settling for the gospel of Caesar, not the good news of Jesus Christ. Perhaps it is time to put down the chalk, stop drawing pyrotechnical conspiracy theories that play into our worst fears and listen, instead, for the diffi…

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A Meditation on Shopping and Desire

…We have an unprecedented access to cheap goods, yet we must recognize that cheap goods are cheaply made. I am not speaking of quality, I am speaking of cheap labor. We must recognize that through the act of shopping, whether it is for an article of clothing, a toy, a pint of strawberries, or even our morning cup of coffee, we participate in a global economy that values profit over people. Disposable goods are made by disposable people, faceless in…

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Are Evangelical Films Destined to Leave Secular Audiences Behind?

…e success either. The opening weekend saw sales of more than $6 million in tickets. That’s the kind of number that will inspire others to try and figure out the formula for the faith-and-family blockbuster. Yet, with the cost of the film reportedly exceeding $30 million, it’s an open question whether or not the Left Behind reboot will get a second installment. The marketing problem of evangelical movies is still, stubbornly, a problem. The general…

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The Faith that Faith Produced

…ou’ll read an excerpt below—has surprised me, too.  I wish I could find my airline companion and give him this book, to surprise him, too—in a good way. (I would accept Lakers tickets in lieu of apologies, but I think that particular era is done.) This whole book is a result of a profound evolution, and needs to be seen as such. American Muslims have gone through a lot over the last few decades. We were never the caricature Islamophobes made us ou…

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Corporations Have Consciences and Contraceptives Are Cheap: Hobby Lobby at the Supreme Court

At oral argument in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. and Conestoga Wood Specialties, Inc. v. Sebelius this morning, the Supreme Court justices spent a great deal of time questioning the lawyers in the case about whether corporations have a religious conscience, and whether Congress intended to protect it when enacting the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). What was most striking, though, was how all three female justices, Sonia So…

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Thanksgiving Reveals More About Us Than About 17th Century Events

…and football, but whatever the reasons for why Thanksgiving endures while Columbus Day is (rightly) challenged, Indian militant Johnny P. Flynn [a loss RD still mourns] asks us to maybe look a bit closer at the last Thursday in November. If Columbus Day uncomplicatedly celebrates genocide and ethnic cleansing, then an honest accounting must consider the ways in which Thanksgiving similarly countenances such things, even while the myths of the day…

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The Papal Prayer Machine

…to recite a daily prayer written by the supreme chaplain of the Knights of Columbus, Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore, would be brought to the installation mass of the new Bishop of Rome, whomever he may be.  Requests for prayers on behalf of particular people or purposes are of course nothing new. Every week the Catholic liturgy includes the General Intercessions, also known as the Prayers of the Faithful, a call and response portion of th…

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Our Failure To Understand Ferguson: A Cognitive Explanation

…te segregation and economic favoritism. When I spoke with Rothstein on the phone, he underscored the long-term effects of this last policy. During the 1940s and 1950s, suburban subdivisions were built in St. Louis, and throughout the country, using federal loans stipulating that no homes be sold to African Americans. Priced at about $125,000 in today’s dollars, these were affordable—with a mortgage—to working class families, black or white. Yet bl…

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American Bishops Pushed Rome on Nun Crackdown

…and the upcoming “fortnight for freedom.” Gallicho examines the Knights of Columbus tax return, and finds that it “donated about $1 million to the Vatican. But the Knights of Columbus doesn’t cut checks just to Rome. In 2010, the organization gave close to $2 million dollars to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. And it donated $25,000 to the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is spearheading the legal challenges to the contraception ma…

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