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Rebuilding the Wall of Separation: A Progressive Discussion on Church & State

By Bruce Ledewitz

…ing religious images as universal will help heal culture war divisions and promote the formation of a broad-based progressive coalition. Frederick Clarkson: Thanks for hosting this discussion, Linell. I think these matters are integral to the functioning, the advance, and indeed the survival of Constitutional democracy. But I think that in order to give them the kind of attention they merit in light of the particular challenges of our time, we nee…

Capitalism and the Anti-Modern Pope

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…rch is growing in South America, in sub-Saharan Africa, and is even making significant inroads in the Far East. And what these emerging Catholic populations want is a culturally conservative theology (recall the uproar in these same regions when the openly gay Anglican bishop, Gene Robinson, was confirmed). The code word for most of that uproar is “anti-Modern.” So the irony of Catholic anti-Modernism multiplies, morphs, turns back on itself. The…

Angels & Demons: America’s Preeminent Pop Theologian Takes on Religion and Science

By Nathan Schneider

…leased in mid-May. Angels & Demons is the successor to 2006’s The Da Vinci Code, which its star Tom Hanks called “just a good story loaded with hooey and nonsense.” Of course, he only has to say that because it’s not true. Everybody knows that despite getting most of his facts wrong, Dan Brown is American culture’s preeminent religious thinker and, in particular, our most trusted interpreter of Catholicism. Even though the Vatican decided to play…

Why I Am Still a Christian

By Diana Butler Bass

…ere a book out there you wish you had written? Which one? Why? The DaVinci Code. Now, that’s a profitable reworking of Christian history. I wouldn’t have to worry about paying for my daughter’s college education. Seriously, I wish I could have written Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age. It is one of those magisterial books about history that has become part of history. Books like that happen once in a generation. Sigh. What’s your next book? It is on…

Gay: The Superior Lifestyle

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…lthy gays and lesbians want to end our “religious freedoms” — which is the code phrase for “they want to pass hate crimes laws that make it illegal for us to call them the filthy sinners they are.” As a Christian, who just also happens to be a lesbian, I take offense at this continuing campaign on the religious right to promote this false dichotomy of gays vs. God. No one in the gay and lesbian community wants to curb anyone’s “religious freedom.”…

Gimme That Old Spice Religion

By Frederick Clarkson

…eveloping charismatic and photogenic representatives of the lifestyle they promote. To this end, VF creates a beautiful glossy catalogue populated with high quality photographs of [the] Phillips children and friends in romantic historic costumes and settings: Jamestown, the Massachusetts Bay Colonies, and the Wild West. In these images, and generally in the literature and stories of Vision Forum, gender roles are greatly exaggerated and glamorized…

The Cynical Use of “Freedom of Religion”

By Kate Childs Graham

…In 1954, Senator Lyndon Johnson presented an amendment to Internal Revenue Code 501(c)(3), which was subsequently adopted by Congress. The amendment defined nonprofit tax-exempt entities—including churches—as those “which [do] not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.” During the recent election cycle, the…

Why Bill Maher Gets a “C” in My Introduction to Religion Class…

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…a sentence, and then give some paragraphs of support to back it up. The assignment has no singular answer, of course; I’m looking for their ability to think coherently and offer support for their ideas. This is something at which Maher and cohorts would mostly succeed. But I’m also looking for my students to do a little reflection on their own assumptions about what religion is and does, to do a little research, and to think about the variety of…

A Jew in Church? No Big Deal

By Benjamin Weiner

…ry strictures. All along, Christianity tempted at the fringes of his life, signifying not salvation through Jesus but mundane liberation from the obligations of Jewish Orthodoxy. “While my upbringing was defined by what I couldn’t do,” he writes, “it seemed to me that Christian kids had it all. In my eyes, they were wealthy, happy, and able to watch TV whenever they wanted.” His discussion of the young Orthodox bourgeoisie—Jews like himself who he…

This is not a Religion Column: Sarah Palin, American

By Jeff Sharlet

…ers listened to Sarah Palin’s convention address expecting heavy religious code, the scriptural allusions that have come to be standard fare in speeches by Republicans and Barack Obama. There wasn’t much—“a servant’s heart,” a prayer for her son sent off to war. But there was, for those with ears to hear it, a far more disturbing allusion: to Westbrook Pegler, a mid-century Rush Limbaugh, and then some. At the height of his popularity, he was more…