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The Spirit of January 6th: The Theology of This Seldom Discussed Movement Animates the Growing Threat to U.S. Democracy

…verred, “is predict which individual upon hearing the rhetoric of clear or coded incitement will turn to violence.” Berlet’s essay was titled “Heroes Know Which Villains to Kill: How Coded Rhetoric Incites Scripted Violence.” Indeed, villain identification has been going on for a long time, and NAR leaders are now featuring ancient scripts for modern violence and religious war. We hear it in the form of imprecatory prayers by religious and politic…

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Critics of Hasidic Schools Exposé Missed the Point: It Wasn’t Antisemitic or the Product of Secular Bias — It’s a Story of Corruption

…I was reminded of this incident as I read the recent feature in the Sunday New York Times on public funding of hasidic schools in New York City which has raised an enormous backlash on social media and among many American Jews. Accusations of bias, unfairness, and even antisemitism, have floated across social media and Jewish journalism. It seems to me that there are a variety of issues here that have become mashed into one large set of accusation…

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Do Not Arrest the Pope: New Atheists’ Call for the Pope’s Arrest Isn’t Likely to Produce Justice

…cusing him of. More broadly, they want the Pope—a symbol of everything the New Atheists revile—to face a very public and very humiliating defeat. And so, at the instigation of these leaders of the new atheist movement, Robertson and another lawyer, Mark Stephens, are developing a legal case on the basis of which they hope to “ask the Crown Prosecution Service to initiate criminal proceedings against the Pope, launch their own civil action against…

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Top Five (Less Sensational, But More Dangerous) Things to Remember About Pat Robertson (1930-2023)

…wn as The Family Channel. This story has two morals: The first is that Fox News and Robertson’s “news” deserve about the same degree of respect from journalists. Second, critics have raised questions about the legality of financial transactions related to Robertson’s business empire. Although at this point there’s no way to determine how well these accusations would hold up in court, we can easily imagine more diligent investigations. 3) Robertson…

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Barbara Ehrenreich’s Bright-Sided Explores the Dark Side of Positive Thinking

…nking nostrums that made a phenomenon out of The Secret. “[N]ow there is a new role model for New York’s former Carrie Bradshaws—young women who are vegetarian, well versed in self-help and New Age spirituality, and who are finding a way to make a living preaching to eager audiences, mostly female,” reported the Times. One 31-year-old member of this eager audience is quoted praising her spiritual tutor Gabrielle Bernstein, a 29-year-old former nig…

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Reverend Billy For Mayor: Is He For Real?

…ity to make it feel like it might, in fact, be true. “If Bloomberg wins in New York City, it is the triumph of corporate capitalism in New York City,” says Durkee. But, with his collar on, Reverend Billy describes the mayor more bluntly: “We’re going to cast out this devil, children!” “Fake” Healing Post-9/11 Both Talen and Durkee had alienating experiences with religion growing up. Durkee describes her father as a “fundamentalist Muslim,” though…

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Mormon-Baiting Pastor’s New Fame Should Help Him Sell His New Book

…sion to pump up his own media profile in advance of the publication of his new book? Jeffress’ Twilight’s Last Gleaming (featuring a one-page foreword by Mike Huckabee) is due out in January. It predicts the end-times demise of the United States but counsels Christians on how they can make “America’s last days your best days” by being the “light” and “salt” of the world. Advance publicity for the book describes Jeffress as a media personality, lis…

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Confession Fail: iPhone App Controversy Muddies the Sacramental Waters

…I have seen as a failure of mainline Catholic and Protestant pilgrims into new digital territories to grasp the social nature of new media residing on our phones and tablets and so on—devices that connect us and the information we engage to others in our lives. As Sherry Turkle has argued, we are increasingly mapping the social function of technologies—the real human-to-human characteristics that they approximate by never truly replicate for us—on…

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A Pastor Takes on BP in New Orleans

…was crucial as many of its leaders are African Americans who reside in the New Orleans East neighborhood where the Vietnamese community is found. New Orleans East is a historically and predominantly African-American region—the largest in the city—so the prospects of cooperation between the two communities was vital. “Both communities have been willing to be in a relationship; it’s just that [the] process has needed assistance, and that was vision…

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The Myth of the ‘Lone Wolf’ Terrorist Continues with New Zealand Attack

…wer format, as if he was of sufficient importance to be interviewed by the news media, Tarrant’s manifesto winds through a rambling set of comments and memes expressing Islamophobia, hatred of immigrants, and a strident right-wing nationalism. Impervious to irony, the Australian Tarrant—himself a foreigner in New Zealand—demands that outsiders be forcibly removed. He shows admiration for the nationalist stance of President Trump and, like Breivik,…

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