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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…

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…

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…

Argue-by-Number: A Suggestion for the Church

By Mark D. Jordan

…is only for procreation.” And so on. We could get clever, of course, and assign separate groups of numbers to arguments pro and con or to thematic clusters. I can even imagine some seminary librarian proposing a sort of Dewey Decimal System to organize the arguments. This would allow long series of arguments to be cited by combining just a few digits. But since I’m a minimalist, I’d be quite content with a randomly ordered list. I’m confident that…

Margaret Cho: God Bless You, Fing Fers

By Lisa Webster

…o gather evidence) they are arguing over the meaning of “Christian.” Which signals that the discussion (or wild screeching) is getting distilled down to elemental particles. Or that everyone is squinting and looking down their rifle sights, getting ready for some serious War on Culture…er…culture war. So there’s Christian as code-word for ‘evangelical.’ Like when Republican politicians say it. And there’s Christian meaning Protestant, as opposed t…

Is Alcoholics Anonymous a Religion?

By Galen Watts

…d back in 2014, defended itself by invoking section 18 of the Human Rights code, which allows a religious group to restrict participation to the faithful. So while AA presents itself to the public as a “spiritual” program, distinguishing itself from “religious” groups, it nevertheless claimed “religious” legal status in order to protect itself. Although the definition of “religion” is generally assumed in common parlance, it is not in any sense ea…

Conservative Christian Book on Obama’s Faith

By Bill Berkowitz

…eld said that “Gen. Boykin gave many in the field just the kind of warrior code they needed to fulfill their duties with moral passion.” In an extensive, and highly-documented, review of Mansfield’s Ten Tortured Words, Rodda, pointed out that the book was shot full of a series of historical errors and noted that “Mansfield makes David Barton, whose masterpiece of historical revisionism, Original Intent, is listed in the bibliography of Ten Torture…

Gandhi, his Grandson, Israel, and the Jews

By Shalom Goldman

…fe holy […] what in Hindu religious feeling and in Gandhi’s religiosity is signified by Dharma corresponds to the Code of Law, in the Jewish way of life. Eight years after Gandhi’s assassination, the Gandhians political exile was evident to Martin Luther King. When King visited India in 1956, he split his time and attention between representatives of the Indian government and the students of Gandhi and quickly became aware of the tension between t…

Dispatches from the Beltway: Beyond the Graying and Greening Religious Right

By Robert P. Jones

…ical community, one that represents not simply a broader agenda but also a significantly different spirit and worldview. Last week, Dr. David Gushee, Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University and author of The Future of Faith in American Politics: The Public Witness of the Evangelical Center, talked compellingly about the arrival of the evangelical center at a standing-room-only presentation at Third Way, a progre…

Glenn Beck Hijacks It’s a Wonderful Life

By Lauri Lebo

…nd active commitment to “social justice,” something that Beck has said are code words for Communism and Nazism. Look, Frank Capra wasn’t exactly known for his subtle messages. Yet, somehow, Beck manages to reinterpret the movie through an unregulated free-market ideological Ayn Rand prism and message of Christian conservatism. For real? Either Beck has never watched the movie, or he’s so conservatively deluded that he thinks Mr. Potter is the hero…