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Everything You Think You Know About the Dark Ages is Wrong

…om, I had to display my pencil and notebook to the clerk to get back my ID card and the ultimate prize: a plastic block with a number on it. I was then permitted to sit in a chair—but not look at any manuscripts, yet.  Juste sat down beside me. “What you will see here,” he whispered, “is the earliest Latin manuscript to contain Arabic words. The earliest proof of the transmission of Arabic science to the West. Now I will order the manuscript.”  He…

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Houston’s Pastor Subpoenas: A Meme Made for Fox News

…erendum petition were invalid, the petitioners no longer had the requisite number of signatures to place the referendum on the ballot. The subpoenas, served on pastors who are not litigants in the lawsuit, seek a broad range of documents and communications, including sermons, regarding their statements on homosexuality, the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO), and the petition process. Represented by the religious right legal firm Alliance Defen…

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Kirk Cameron Joins the Anti-Mormon Chorus
(Sort Of)

…ad heard that there were plans to put me on the list of speakers. I bought tickets… then there was a mix up… and I was cut from the list, if I had indeed been on a list… but I had some Christians who expressed concern…. and then I read your article and I… decided it would be best for me to wait and see how things play themselves out. Howse asked if Beck’s apparent view that “we all pray to the same God” isn’t by definition false teaching. Cameron…

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For the Love of God, Bono, Please Stop Touring

…ly black, a stadium full of white people who paid more than a Benjamin for tickets is not going to be the nexus for authentic justice conversations. I work for a white, affluent, suburban, mega-church, so I’m used to that. But at that moment, before the music even started, I knew what my friend was referencing—I was about to get spiritual too. “They knew they were born to weep and keep the morticians employed as long as they pledge allegiance to t…

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The Prophet Amos on Unemployment and Our Leadership

…can’t find any job; among younger males, especially African-Americans, the number is much higher—in many areas one in two workers is without work.   Yet Congress, with a Democratic majority, can’t get it together to extend unemployment benefits. Our solons just flew out of town for a weeklong holiday vacation. Republicans, joined by Democratic deficit hawks, insist that any extension be “deficit neutral” and come out of unspent stimulus money. But…

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McChurch Picks Up Progressive Endorsements

…a spin-off sequel, while the latest includes an event tour (Pay by credit card or check!). To be clear then: McLaren is his own consumer trend. But his reinvention sells and, when consumed, produces fertile opportunities for insight. A ticket to the “Everything Must Change” tour is, somewhat oddly perhaps, a plunge into a pool of progressive partners. Multiethnic churches and urban ministries will play tour hosts. Sojourners magazine is an event…

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Detroit’s Baggy Pants Fatwa

…addressed, I wouldn’t find it so disturbing. Were Detroit’s finest giving tickets to Speedo-clad gentlemen terrorizing Americas beaches and public pools, I think they’d have a case. I think it’s safe to say that for most people what is ultimately repugnant about the aforementioned policies in some Islamic societies today is not their religious inspiration, but their ultimately tyrranical nature, the imposition of the opinions of one segment of so…

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Argue-by-Number: A Suggestion for the Church

…n our side. Number 1 could be “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” Number 2: “God doesn’t discriminate.” Number 3: “Sex is only for procreation.” And so on. We could get clever, of course, and assign separate groups of numbers to arguments pro and con or to thematic clusters. I can even imagine some seminary librarian proposing a sort of Dewey Decimal System to organize the arguments. This would allow long series of arguments to be cited b…

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Give Me That Old-Time Ex-Gay Snake Oil

…lifetime makes a person gay, then I suppose I ought to turn in my lesbian card. I can count the number of sexual partners I have had in 49 years on two hands and have some fingers left over. Not because there weren’t offers, but because, as a general rule, I like to have some sort of close relationship and trust with the person I get naked with. I plan to share something special with them, so I want to have some feelings before I fall into bed wi…

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

…ng, and dance like puppets, and they might be funnier as actual puppets—or cartoons. The musical made me think of the Ethiopian character “Starvin’ Marvin” from the first season of South Park. Starvin’ Marvin worked as a paper cutout. A child actor performing the same role on stage would be appalling. I cringed in my seat at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre as I watched talented African American actors hamming up “African-ness” for cheap laughs. It brou…

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