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Why #FreeBritney is an #Exvangelical Cause

Everyone knows Britney Spears. Her talent, popularity, and struggles with mental illness are ubiquitous. A widely celebrated artist dubbed “The Princess of Pop,” Spears has five No. 1 singles and six No. 1 albums. She’s sold 150 million records around the world. After a public episode of mental illness in 2008, Spears was assigned a conservator. Since 2008, she’s nonetheless conducted four world tours, recorded four albums, and performed 248 sold…

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Policing Academic Freedom: A Book, a Controversy, and the Ominous Aftermath

…wamis, the Hindu communities I was a part of, trips to India, and my own reflective readings.” Shukla explains that “while there always have been and now are a growing number of scholars who are committed to presenting emic understandings of Hinduism, we find each year that the ‘in crowd’ created by Doniger at the AAR has yet to shift in terms of power and influence.” In light of this information, she reprimands the AAR for their support of the wo…

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New Report on (White) Christian Nationalism and the J6 Insurrection Shows Just ‘How Dire the Threat is’

…ee of interest in the February 9 webinar, for which 1500 people registered, 800 of whom attended. These are very large numbers for events of this nature, and part of the reason for releasing the report at this time is to “keep public attention on Christian nationalism.” While no particular next steps are immediately planned, Tyler expresses hope “that this will be a resource for the [US House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack], and for othe…

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Catholic Church Ordained Women Before, Can Do it Again

…e trajectory of deacon-priest-bishop is relatively recent—only about 700 or 800 years in the long history of the Church. In fact, the earlier understanding is that the deacon would become a bishop! I sometimes wonder if the naysayers are more afraid of women bishops than of women priests. But, in modern times, we have reestablished the tradition of a diaconate lived permanently. All priests are also ordained deacons, and in the most formal of litu…

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Did the Pope Embrace the Prosperity Gospel?

…Copelands employ guerilla tactics to keep their employees silent:” We are flat out told and threatened that if we talk, God will blight our finances, strike our families down, and pretty much afflict us with everything evil and unholy. Rather, God will allow Satan to do those things to us because we have stepped out from under His umbrella of protection, by “touching God’s anointed Prophet.” Pope Francis has said, “I would love a church that is p…

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Are Atheists Taking 1st Amendment Suits Too Far?

While sanctimonious conservatives and godless liberals alike await the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Hobby Lobby case, two more suits with serious church and state implications are quietly making their way through the system. The Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) is a group of “atheists, agnostics and skeptics” with a Scientology-esque fondness for litigation. Recently the FFRF has gone after the so-called “parsonage exemption,” which allow…

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Violent, Genocidal Anti-Palestinian Rhetoric Moving to US?

…se, his funeral last October was the largest in the country’s history, with 800,000 Israelis attending. In the past month, Rabbi Noam Perel, head of Bnei Akiva, the largest Jewish religious youth group in the world, called for the mass-murder of Palestinians and for their foreskins to be scalped and brought back as trophies, alluding to an episode in the Book of Samuel; and a Jerusalem city councillor, in charge of security, encouraged a crowd to…

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Lifestyles of the Rich and Pious

CNN’s Belief Blog has a great rundown of the lavish homes of American archbishops who haven’t gotten the memo from Pope Francis about a “church which is poor and for the poor.” CNN reports that “10 of the 34 active archbishops in the United States live in buildings worth more than $1 million.” The median home value in the U.S. is $174,200. Not surprisingly, that list includes some of the nation’s most outspoken conservative bishops—and allies of…

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Rep. Cleaver’s ‘Awoman’ Prayer Enrages Christian Nationalists Who Taste Their Own Medicine and Still Miss the Point

…ray to whichever gods care to listen and end their prayers with the verbal flourish or fetish of their choosing. But they should not do so with a government microphone, and not on the taxpayers’ time and dime. We’ve seen plenty of divisive prayers from the conservative side. Often deliberately so, wielding prayer like a cudgel. The Pennsylvania legislator’s Jesus-laden, jaw-dropping prayer uttered to intimidate the state’s first female Muslim legi…

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The Burning Houses of Worship We Missed

…g District of Western China, where officials have reportedly bulldozed over 800 mosques. Authorities have also detained hundreds of thousands of Uighurs in re-education camps. The scale of the suffering is difficult to imagine. In fairness, there’s been a lot of good reporting about the plight of the Uighurs. And yet I believe the outpouring of emotion for more recognizable places—especially Notre Dame—is instructive. Samuel Johnson defined sympat…

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