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A Comedy Writer Confronts ‘Mind-Shredding Evil’ in Uganda

By Frederick Clarkson

…rmer top commanders, (an ex-bodyguard for president Museveni) was hired to run it. Bussmann learned that this was more the rule than the exception. Writing on the Huffington Post she recently declared that some 20-66,000 children have been direct victims of what amounts to a “fake war.” “But if everyone knew… why had nobody stopped him?” she wondered. “All around me, millions were being pumped into the effort.” “Only a cynic,” she continued, “coul…

Family Planning is Vatican’s Blind Spot on Environment

By Frances Kissling

…the agenda of the conference. It came up, as Andrew Revkin blogged in the New York Times, “99 minutes into the conference.” Werner Arber, the head of the Academy of Sciences and a Nobel laureate in medicine was asked by a Hong Kong attendee Hsin-chi Kuan if he believed in birth control. Arber replied that he did. Many delegates believe in birth control, or family planning—the less politically charged expression. Jeffery Sachs from Colombia Univer…

Religious Belief Or Mental Illness?

By Jay Michaelson

…f pure-lands ruled over by kind bodhisattvas? Golden tablets buried in the New World, containing a history of Canaanite tribes who left absolutely no archeological record? The sun and the moon standing still? Not to mention the holiday season’s wild story of a “magic baby” birthed by a virgin (wittily parodied by a fake Kristen Stewart video that’s currently going viral). Progressives are supposed to respect fundamentalists’ hyperliteral readings…

Pope Francis Praised for ‘Civil Unions’ Comment, But Justice Begins at Home—In the Vatican

By Mary E. Hunt

…runcated in the service of conserving outmoded theology. Third, the Pope’s words on civil unions, however well-meaning beyond an instrumentalist way of keeping the queer devil at bay, ring hollow. In light of his fulsome calls for world peace, an end to nuclear weapons and the death penalty, economic equality, and a halt to genocide, it’s odd and disappointing that he cannot gird up his cassock and find the gumption to affirm relational equality a…

Why We Should Keep the Devil in Halloween

By Ed Simon

…few months before. It certainly feels as if that gossamer veil between the world as is and the world to come is a bit thinner. It is nature’s memento mori, the natural time in the calendar for cultures to mark death and dying, to commemorate and recognize it. In the contemporary world our twin idols of positivist science and neutered religion have sanitized our experience. In exorcising the world of our demons we’ve made our angels leave as well….

Dear Reader, I’m Assuming You Don’t Know Any Muslims

By Haroon Moghul

…themselves at the center of a far vaster and very hostile Arab and Muslim world. To these Israelis I countered, “You do realize many in that Arab and Muslim world believe you are the aggressors—and are scared of you?” Many were surprised. But, I explained, they don’t see Israel standing on its own. They see it as a forward operating base for America, which is itself a continuation of European colonialism and hegemony. And it doesn’t help that Ame…

Inside Outsourced: Come See Where Your Jobs Went

By Haroon Moghul

…m single mother in the hood who’s torn between protecting her daughter and running a drug ring she inherited, good luck! The latter is a script by new filmmaker Nia Malika Dixon, and would probably interest a more popular audience than a Hajj film. And for all the talk about bridging gaps between affluent immigrant Muslim groups and the longstanding African American Muslim community, this film would be an opportunity to show commitment to that goa…

A Long History of Blaming the Jews

By Gordon Haber

…e exposed daily to some variant of the argument that the challenges of the world they live in are best explained in terms of ‘Israel.’” If there is one weakness in this book, it is that there is a slight vagueness or mushiness on this point. But only this point. “Anti-Judaism” is a fascinating and challenging book. And troubling: it is frankly amazing to consider this millennia-long preoccupation with “the Jews” and “Judaizing” and how frequently…

A New, Softer Prosperity Gospel Still Can’t Deliver On Its Promises of Health and Wealth

By Verdell A. Wright

…sm, and poverty personal issues instead of societal sins. To continue to support theologies of prosperity is to ignore the evidence of the financial peril that many people people—including those who voted for Trump—now live with. In a time when so many people have lost so much and stand to lose even more, prosperity theologies may have softened their edges, but the danger they pose remains the same. …

“Liberal Nazis”: The Republican Crusade Against NPR

By Paul Harvey

…scourse about religion: National Public Radio. Leading the great national crusade is Representative Douglas Lamborn (R-Colorado Springs); previously unknown to the public at large but famous locally for a vigorous advocacy of military spending to a degree that makes even some Tea Partiers uneasy. NPR and its “Liberal Agenda” For years, Lamborn has sponsored bills to eliminate public funding for National Public Radio. The recent fortuitous combinat…