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Godly Game or Godless Satire? Countering Biblical Ignorance with Heretical Humor

By Betsy Shirley

…me for Good Christians, released earlier this year, offers a scriptural twist: most of the material from its 300-card deck has been lifted directly from the Bible, with chapter and verse to prove it. The results fall somewhere between playful irreverence and flat-out blasphemy. For example, if the card “A woman must quietly receive ________ with full submission” is played, it could be paired with response cards that include “Crotch-less pants (2 S…

What Can a Real Life Haunting Tell Us About American Religion? [Updated]

By Daniel Wise

…house. Growing up in a Latina household in south Texas, Maria was told ghost stories like those of the legendary La Llorona, the ghostly weeping woman, and she enjoys what she describes as “Catholic horror movies,” such as The Conjuring in which Catholic heroes fight off demons. Maria drew from these word-of-mouth tales and the media she consumes to conclude that these otherwise unexplainable phenomena were a haunting caused by ghosts. Maria isn’…

Conservative Rep Grills Oklahoma Personhood Sponsors

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…ng, while still being bothered by the potential consequences of turning blastocyst-Americans into legal rights-bearing persons. But meanwhile, those who are most invested in getting a personhood bill passed won’t be pleased with any exception or compromise. They’re hoping personhood legislation will get them a court challenge that results in Roe v. Wade being overturned. So conservative legislators are caught in the middle, and the voters themselv…

How To Talk To “Nones” and Influence People: Rob Bell’s Transrational Experience

By Brook Wilensky-Lanford

…nt regional manager of an insurance company—he actually says this—be the best assistant regional manager of an insurance company you can be. Work on something called your “craft.” (Even the insurance agent has a craft.) Also, pay attention to the details of life. Use the fine china. Unplug and play with your kids. Take a “Sabbath” from email. And you, too, will learn how to be here. Rob Bell, for most of us, will be best known as the guy who decla…

Where Polls and Surveys Fall Short: A Conversation with Robert Wuthnow on “Inventing American Religion”

By Andrew Aghapour

…does seem to be pretty good data supporting it, as part of the story at least. Then, number three, is that the studies that actually ask a person the same question a year or two later are finding that individuals change their minds a lot. That seems to occur especially with people who are identified as Nones. One paper identifies at least half of the Nones as “Liminals,” people who are trying to decide, on the cusp of making up their mind. You ask…

End-Times Watcher Sees Satan in an Energy Drink

By William R. Black

…de anti-Christian. “Bottoms up,” she says, mimicking the motion. Weick’s most striking piece of evidence is the large, stylized letter M, which she claims is not one letter but the Hebrew letter Vav repeated three times. In Hebrew, letters have numerical values. The first letter, Alef, is also the number one; the second letter, Bet, is also the number two; etc. Vav, the sixth letter in the Hebrew alphabet and has the numerical value of six. Theref…

Marriage Vote ‘Transforms’ Not-So-Catholic Ireland; Activist to Malaysian PM – ‘Love Is Not Terrorism’; LGBTs Find Growing Acceptance in Colombia, Not At World Meeting of Families; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…U.N. General Assembly, unsettled many in the audience by declaring: “We must stand up for the rights of gays and lesbians everywhere.” Power, who was present for those remarks, said that she was near enough to Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe, to hear him mutter: “My God.” There have also been enormous victories for L.G.B.T. people in nations as different as Nepal andMalta over the last few years. This year alone, a popular referendum leg…

Global LGBT Recap: Nigeria Jails Gays, Russian Orthodox Spox Calls for Criminalization Referendum

By Peter Montgomery

…nment Announces 7,000 Same-Sex Couples Married Last Year France’s national statistics agency, Insee, announced this week that about 7,000 same-sex couples were married last year, representing about 3 percent of marriages nationwide. Same-sex couples won the right to marry in May over strong objections from the Catholic Church, the far right, and others – cheered on by American religious conservatives. Meanwhile, a spokesman for the far-right Nati…

Hajj Journal: Door Number 89: The Door with No Name

By Amina Wadud

…y eke out a space behind some men. But the rudeness of the removal is so disturbing, I just do not want that encounter. But I do want to pray where I can see the Ka’abah. That is only possible from the first floor, and if you are right by the railing on the upper floors. So, I have missed this opportunity after that first day, when we did our tawaf, followed by two rakaat at the maqam Ibrahim. As I circled around inside the mosque one day, I came…

RDBook: Apocalypse Without God

By Nathan Schneider

…to bring the ideas of Jacques Derrida into American theology and religious studies. Starting in the late 90s, though, Taylor ventured far afield with books on architecture, computer networks, economic markets, and even Las Vegas. In 2006, he released a book of photographs of animal skeletons in the desert. Taylor’s most recent book, After God, gathers these pieces together into a wide-ranging manifesto. He insists that the major social, ecological…