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The Democrats’ Real Religion Problem, And All Of Ours

By Daniel Schultz

…s the evangelical president. Q: Have Democrats lost their way? A: Since the 1980’s Democrats no longer speak the language of faith. Q: Who are the Real Americans? A: Real Americans are the religious. Q: Do Democrats have a religion problem? A: Democrats must learn to speak the language of faith. Q: Are Democrats too secular? A: Democrats must create a big tent for pro-life voters and those who believe in traditional marriage. Q: Are Democrats host…

Bush Has Helped the Scarecrow of American Religion

By Hussein Rashid

…rding to religious doctrine, and are also better equipped to deal with and manage legal difference. However, we know both of these traditions are too foreign for most Americans, despite the fact that Jesus was Jewish and Morocco was one of the first countries to recognize American independence. No, the sophistication of language I refer to is the one of nuance. The curse that has plagued the coverage of Islam since the Iranian Revolution, that it…

The Jewish Daily Forward is Neither Jewish, Nor Daily (But Still Forward). Discuss!

By Brook Wilensky-Lanford

…e subject to politicization—the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), founded in 1917, has new, more vocally right-leaning competition as of 2011 in the Jewish News Service. One might expect a certain flavor of conservatism from The Forward, a 118-year-old legacy newspaper, that was originally (and still is) published in Yiddish, a language that few people speak. It would be easy to lump the Forward into the shrinking-but-still-present national network…

Will House “Freedom” Group’s Core Racism Go Unchallenged?

By Peter Laarman

…estion that Samuel Johnson asked about the American revolutionaries back in 1775: “How is it we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?” Lest anyone think that race has nothing to do with the House GOP’s budget-balancing agenda, we should take a look at what is actually at stake. The most visible targets of the austerity crusaders—Obamacare and Planned Parenthood—are programs that serve and help low-income people of color…

Does Mormonism Encourage LDS People to Lie?

By Joanna Brooks

…our history and religious practice. Flagging concern about how this highly managed communications style has impacted the Romney campaign and might shape a Romney presidency, Reno quotes a former LDS Church employee, who states, “Every Mormon grows up with the idea that it’s OK to lie if it’s for a higher cause.” That doesn’t quite ring true to my own experience, though I do understand well the truth-swerving phenomenon Emmet and Reno describe. In…

RDBook: Technology and Tradition: Carlson’s Indiscrete Image

By Nathan Schneider

…nything but closed. We are not fenced-off creatures that interact with and manage a universe outside us, whether it be a medieval monastery or a virtual reality machine. We know ourselves only through our relationships with the things of a universe that is mostly beyond comprehension, our own inventions included. The uncanny convergence between mystics and tech-savvy moderns means that listening to tradition in the face of new challenges doesn’t e…

When You Argue With a Fundamentalist You Don’t Know What You’re Asking For

By Nelle Smith

…through my thick head that the earth was old. I was halfway through Geology 100 when, on one otherwise dull afternoon, the professor said something—I don’t even remember what—and a puzzle piece snapped into place. I sat up straight. The earth was old. Not six thousand years old. Billions of years. What did that mean? I’d grown up evangelical Christian. We weren’t as conservative as some—and, to the outside eye, we probably looked pretty normal—but…

Will Religion Solve the Obesity Crisis?

By Andrew Aghapour

…ausing me problems!”). The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) seems to manage self-control, by helping to regulate and evaluate choices. (“No to Chocolate Cake!”) These findings are still new, and brain imaging can only make large-scale generalizations, but the initial results are interesting. It seems that during tests of self-control, our ACC keeps firing, but our DLPFC fires less and less over time. In other words, we keep evaluating and a…

The Sacred and the Dead: The Trouble with Sugar Magnolia

By Kaya Oakes

…ire American Beauty album. Steve passed away in June of this year. That was 15 years after our “Ripple” conversation, and today, there are hundreds of Dead songs on my phone and dozens of live recordings in playlists, even a nod when I see a Deadhead sticker on a car. I am a relapsed Catholic, and thanks to my friend, I am also a repentant Deadhead. Dear Jesus, let me confess: I even wear Birkenstocks. Shannon. Deadshow, Deadhead. Dominquez Hills,…

Discrimination on the Taxpayer’s Dime? The Fight To Curtail the Overreach of RFRA

By Sarah Posner

…HHS were receiving the health care they needed—and are entitled to under a 1997 settlement agreement in Flores v. Reno, which requires, among other things, that these children have access to family planning services. In the ACLU’s lawsuit against HHS, the USCCB asserted in a sworn affidavit that it did not refer these minors in its custody for services that it objected to on religious grounds, like contraception and abortion. In responses to my i…