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Manufactured Outrage Over ‘Godless’ Democratic Platform [UPDATE]

By Peter Montgomery

…s expected blowhards like the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue, but it also includes GOP chair Reince Priebus (“disgraceful”) and vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, who said that Democrats’ “purges of God” are “not in keeping with our founding documents, our founding vision.” It sounds like Ryan has been reading the supremely misleading David Barton. The same goes for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who said in his GOP convention address that “faith in…

The Double Blessing: Obama, the Bible, and Outreach to Muslims

By Charlotte Gordon

…t between God and Abraham, both Muslims and Jews have lost sight of God’s inclusivity. As a result, for thousands of years the sons of Isaac have viewed the sons of Ishmael as potential enemies, and vice versa. Each side sees the other as the opponent in a battle for God’s single blessing. Here’s the catch. God did not just bestow one blessing. “So what?” hard-liners will say, God said that Sarah’s child, Isaac, was the child of His covenant and t…

Lars von Trier is the Antichrist Best Film Director in the World

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…the world. I’m not sure if God is the best God in the world.” In one sentence arrogance and provocation, in the other protest, questioning. This “He”—this therapist, this filmmaker, this Creator God—is a bastard. In the end, Antichrist is a condemnation of the world, of nature, of human nature, and of the God who puts a man and a woman together in a garden called Eden. It is a reversed creation myth, anti-cosmic, anti-Christic. And here it is ano…

Do Not Attack the Writer

By Peter Montgomery

…eneral. My dismay turned to laughter when I saw immediately below Winters’ screed the code of conduct for comments on National Catholic Reporter. His post is a primer on violating NCR’s own rules for respectful conversation. Maybe someone at NCR can give him a much-needed tutorial. NCR Comment code: Be respectful. Do not attack the writer. Take on the idea, not the messenger. Use appropriate language. Avoid vulgarities and slurs. Keep to the poin…

North Carolina Just Tried to Ban Marriage Equality Because “Almighty God” Said So

By Sunnivie Brydum

…hold Historical Marriage Act” has been almost universally panned, with the Charlotte Observer rightly noting that the mere introduction of the bill has offered an easy opportunity for the nation to “once again” start “mocking North Carolina.” Even the Republican Speaker of the House, a key sponsor of HB2, said the new bill should be considered dead on arrival. Considering that the bill recycles old (and legally defeated) “justifications” for oppos…

What Robot Theology Can Tell Us About Ourselves

By Michael Schulson

…diately at questions about the extent of human power, and whether intelligence is distinct from a soul. Meanwhile, some transhumanists foresee a period when the human mind will be uploaded onto a deathless computer. As religion scholar Robert Geraci has argued, this vision of people shedding their imperfect bodies and achieving immortality sounds an awful lot like the Rapture. Technologies don’t need to seem futuristic, though, in order to spur a…

#VanillaISIS, White Tears and the Adventures of Captain Moroni

By Megan Goodwin

…en Mormon plural marriage and Muslim polygamy. Religious and sexual difference was supposedly evidence of barbarity, and justification for sending U.S .troops against U.S. citizens for the first time in our nation’s history. More recently, journalists identified Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (a separate entity from LDS, though the groups share common religious ancestry) as “the American Taliban,” described Mormon funda…

#WhiteChurchQuiet: Anything but Outrage Is Complicity

By Andre E. Johnson

…t it—the Black church has been missing in action on a host of issues and concerns germane to the African American Community. However, if there is any response from Christians concerning American injustice, it will typically come from the Black Church. At its best, the Black Church has been the home of the African American Prophetic tradition, birthed from slavery and shaped in Jim and Jane Crow America. Through struggle and sacrifice, this traditi…

On Pi Day, Puzzling Over the Most Famous Transcendental Number

By Ilana E. Strauss

…Physicsworld.com user asks, “What could be more mystical than an imaginary number interacting with real numbers to produce nothing?” Where infinity merges with the earth When you dig into pi, you encounter questions that are as much theological as mathematical: is there a pattern to the universe? Or is it fundamentally random? And how do we reckon with the infinite? Some people have always insisted that there must be a pattern behind pi. If only h…

A Reforming Tradition Struggles With Change

By Brent Hege

…essings of a committed relationship, yet these women do not recognize the inconsistency (at best) or hypocrisy (at worst) in their position. And thus there is a perceived need for a new church body that will continue to ordain women (itself a departure from their own reading of scripture, tradition, and the confessions) but will deny that right to gay and lesbian persons in committed, monogamous, lifelong, publicly accountable relationships. The E…