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The Moral Bankruptcy of Silicon Valley Asceticism

…is unethical, I wonder how he imagines those clothes in China are made so cheaply, and whether an industrial factory qualifies as a gauntlet. If Rhinehart washed his clothes himself, however, he would need a washing machine, which takes energy, and he couldn’t say he lived on a battery anymore. A commenter on Rhinehart’s post aptly called this brand of asceticism “consumption laundering”; because Rinehart doesn’t do the consumption himself, it do…

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From ‘Management Gurus’ to ‘Corporate Chaplains’: A Review of Spirituality Inc.

…ompanies like Hobby Lobby are not called upon to explain their reliance on cheap goods and labor. Exploitative working conditions, even if ones tucked out of sight in overseas factories, can’t be justified by religious rhetoric. Bethany Moreton, author of the recent To Serve God and Wal-Mart, spoke with me about these contradictions. “Evangelical interpretations of sin as personal vice have obscured the structural injustices even in a Christian mo…

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First Things First: Sexual Equality Just Is

…oing work women have always done. Women and men can now both have equally “cheap sex” thanks to the Pill, but Regnerus concludes that this has come back to bite the very women who thought they were liberated by creating an equality-induced “power imbalance” in the marriage market: there is a surplus of women who want to marry, creating a buyer’s market for men. Pathetic, lonely women like “Nina” are now left out in the cold where they can expect “…

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Body Language: Michael Jackson and the Illogic of White Superiority

…of internalized racism made manifest through wealth; plastic surgery isn’t cheap! Toni Morrison pointed out the ‘wish’ of sameness—the desire on the part of some African Americans to see reflected in themselves and through themselves the ‘ideal’ depicted in US popular culture. Morrison referenced blue eyes, and Michael Jackson’s body came to mirror this desire to be different, to change the flesh to fit the dominant ideal. There is certainly somet…

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Watching Preachers’ Daughters Right After the Boston Bombings While Teaching a Class on Augustine’s Confessions

…the reductive “purity” rhetoric with something reductive of my own, like a cheap criticism that Christianity is anti-sex and anti-body. Which brings me to Augustine’s Confessions, and specifically, reading Augustine’s Confessions with my Intro Theology class this week. Internet, I love Augustine Confessions. I love, love, love, love Augustine’s Confessions. I love it even when I want to throw it across the room and curse. It’s a complicated love,…

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Is the Satanic Temple Just an Elaborate Prank? 10 Questions for the Author of ‘Speak of the Devil’

…Most Americans claim to value tolerance and religious freedom. But talk is cheap, especially if you have never seriously thought about what these commitments might actually mean in a pluralistic society. I was disturbed to read some of TST’s Christian opponents openly renouncing religious freedom if it meant respecting the freedoms of Satanists. I also think TST is forcing the public to think more critically about what “religion” is. They are dire…

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Dispatches from the Borderlands: Missing Voices

…er border security, we forget that such measures have grossly inflated the number of undocumented immigrants residing in the US. Half of these used to return to Mexico annually, but researchers now estimate that only one-fourth do so today; stricter border enforcement measures since 1994 have staunched the cyclical flow of the return home of millions. The crisis of 12 million “illegal” immigrants is one of our own creation. The missing clergy coul…

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National Association of Evangelicals Supports Immigration Reform, But Elsewhere Discord Reigns

…tepping up the pace of deportations of those same persons. Why? Because of cheap politics and the sneer. And also because people of faith have started fighting among themselves instead of working to resolve the problems. We should be in charge of helping politicians have the political cover they need to do the extravagantly right and realistic thing. Consensus is possible if people are willing to give and take; to be a little less convinced that t…

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Playing Hooky: Will Boycott of Catholic Church Spur Reform?

…l that divides us, whatever it is. The bread and wine we use is materially cheap and unsatisfying; what we experience in them is supposed to come from a wealth beyond. In the presence of God, and among people of different races, classes, and opinions, the mass should nourish us in our common humanity. So whom exactly is one harming by boycotting, by staying home in solitary prayer? The earthly Church might miss your money in the collection—that’s…

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With Methodist LGBTQ Vote and GOP Support for Trump, White Protestantism Has Hit Bottom

…ose reading of Scripture is cramped, at best. Seen in this context, it’s a cheap dodge for liberals within the UMC to blame churches and delegates from the Global South for the vote to retain (and even heighten) the denomination’s ban on all things queer. Yes, the UMC does have a much heavier Global South representation in its governance than any of the other “sisters”; fully 41% of the delegates in St. Louis represented churches outside of the Un…

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