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LDS Church Issues New Statement on Immigration

By Joanna Brooks

…iscourse” by the public. “Finding a successful resolution will require the best thinking and goodwill of all across the political spectrum, the highest levels of statesmanship, and the strongest desire to do what is best for all of God’s children,” Church leaders said. Elected officials and Latino activists have asked the Church to take a more public stance on immigration in part because the immigration debate has been most heated in western state…

Joel Osteen and Annise Parker: Strange Stage-fellows

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…who last year told the ladies on The View that homosexuality is not “God’s best” for people. Then I read a statement from Don Iloff Jr., a spokesman for Osteen, on why he chose to pray at the event: “If you ask Joel he’ll tell you ‘when I can pray at an event over government leaders and in Jesus’ name it’s hard to resist,’” Iloff said. Osteen prayed for the previous mayor, Bill White, at his inauguration. “Annise says she’s a believer. Let her sta…

What We Need to Understand is that Fascism is Intersectional and Erotic—’Thy Rod is Thy Gun,’ With a Hip-Thrust

By Annika Brockschmidt

…means—the way that’s also the transgression of a White man who’s doing his best James Brown imitation. Because in that imagination, Blackness is a kind of sexuality, and Kunnemann possesses that potent sexual power in the same way that he claims he has a mandate for war. To take back the nation. And he does not mean that figuratively. (I didn’t include the whole sermon in the book.) He is openly saying “war is coming. We’re going to fight a war an…

As New Poll Finds “Increased Xenophobic Streak,” Republicans Heighten Anti-Muslim Rhetoric

By Sarah Posner

…Catholics, black Protestants, and the unaffiliated “all believe America’s best days are ahead of us.” Jones called the pessimism/optimism gap a “deep cultural divide,” associated with a perceived decline in the influence of white men. “White working class Americans are less happy and less apt to say our best days are ahead of us,” he said. Relatedly, and not surprisingly, PRRI found that supporters of Donald Trump are more likely than even other…

‘Exporting Garbage to the Nations’: Conservative Christian Rifts Spreading Like Cracked Glass

By Frederick Clarkson and André Gagné

…nths of conversation, he and his wife, Jen Stoltzfus, “decided it would be best not to get involved with this group of people.” He doesn’t say why, but what subsequently came out about this “group” may have had something to do with it. Nevertheless, after launching in April, by “mid-2020,” “the group” approached them again, “saying they were going to close shop” and wanted to know if the Stoltzfuses “were interested in carrying this on.” Stoltzfus…

The Trouble With Harry (Potter): Religious Conservatives Do Have Something to Fear

By Jay Michaelson

…ean here the unreconstructed monotheistic God) has no role whatsoever. The best man wins the duel—or rather, the man with the best wand. Now, one could, of course, make the same claims about comic-book sagas like Superman or Batman. Why should Harry Potter have to take any more refuge in the numinous than Kal-El or Bruce Wayne? Well, because there is something intrinsically religious about the Potter series; and I don’t just mean the rab…

The Americans Season Finale: Teach Your Parents Well

By Cathleen Falsani

…Americans unfold. ** WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD** The FX series is easily the best drama on television right now, chock-o-block with meticulously well-developed characters, relational pathos and intrigue, and an endlessly compelling story arc that, in large part, revolves around Paige Jennings, a precocious tween who, on her own, starts going to church and becomes a born-again Christian, and her parents, Elizabeth and Philip Jennings, who are deep un…

Is Christianity Simply About God Entering the Uterus of a Jewish Virgin?

By Eric Reitan

…o the concept of unconditional love. Unconditional love isn’t earned. It’s bestowed as a gift. But for those who’ve grown to measure their worth in terms of their accomplishments, unconditional love may be an unwanted gift. It’s this fact, for Browning, that ultimately perpetuates our alienation from God. Where God offers unconditional love, and invites participation in a community defined by such love, we want the world to be ruled by a law of “t…

God in the Inauguration: JFK, Bush, and Obama

By Jerome E. Copulsky

…these beliefs and America’s national security interests: “Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our nation. It is the honorable achievement of our fathers. Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation’s security, and the calling of our time.” “Advancing these ideas” thereby shapes America’s mission: “It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and cult…

Capricology: Tattoos, Blood, Cyber-Dating

By Anthea Butler

…. Of course, I rarely met an Extropian who did not think that they had the best of human brains, just as one rarely meets someone who claims to have a past life that was boring and uninteresting. It seems to me that we can see the Zoebot as a kind of Extropian fantasy—the idea that transmitting and coalescing all of our core data will allow us to preserve the essence of human identity beyond death. Of course, rationalism, as we see above, and not…