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Hey Michele Bachmann,
I Got Your Nobel Laureates Right Here

By Lauri Lebo

…t, an anti-evolution law that would sneak the teaching of creationism into science class. I’ve analyzed the purpose of the law here. What’s really cool about Kopplin’s campaign is that he has lined up support for the repeal from 43 Nobel Laureates. So Kopplin, in an open letter on his web site Wednesday, basically said, “I’ve shown mine, now you, Congresswoman Bachmann, show me yours.” He writes: Does Congresswoman Bachmann really think the public…

Austrian Court Okays Head-Colander in Driver’s License: Is Pastafarianism Becoming a Religion?

By Joseph Laycock

…D argue that students should be taught “both sides of the debate” and that science classes should present ID alongside evolution. Unemployed physics graduate Bobby Henderson wrote an open letter to the school board, supporting their decision to teach multiple perspectives but insisting that students also be taught a third perspective: The possibility that Earth was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. As Henderson put it: I think we can all look…

Capricology: Week 2: The Soul of a Robot

By Salman Hameed

…assaying forms of humanness. Was Tony Soprano human? Well maybe, but what about Al Swearengen? Okay, him too, but what about Dexter? Hmm—if he’s inside the tent, what about something that isn’t even a someone? We’ve seen humanoid Cylons, slinky terminators, and programmed “dolls” save our (“real”) butts more than once. Yet we’re ready to debate it all again as we watch a life form shapeshift (within its own consciousness and to our omnipotent gaz…

Updated with Response: The Black Church is Dead—Long Live the Black Church

By Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

…tional, irrational, and politically disengaged. And this still says little about the ways in which racial and religious identity are conflated in so many conversations about African-American religion. So perhaps it might be helpful to consider, paraphrasing Stuart Hall circa 1991, what exactly this “black” and “Christian” is in post-black church debates. Following Glaude’s phrase, I’ll touch upon “the black” first. We can rightfully locate his ana…

Australia’s Harsh Refugee Policies Stirring Backlash; Malawi Court Sides With Pastors To Lift Moratorium on Sodomy Prosecutions; Uzbek President Says God Has Taken Gays’ Reason Away; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…re LGBT groups are virtually banished from the public space… it is all but science fiction to speak about gay marriage and request the constitutional court to weigh in on it,” said Lasha Kavtaradze, spokesperson for the Human Rights Education and Monitoring Centre. The Guardian notes that the European Union has tried to prevent LGBT rights from becoming an obstacle to closer tied with Georgia: In Georgia, attitudes towards sexual orientation are l…

Biblical Inerrancy’s Long History as an Evangelical Activist for White Patriarchy

By Stephen Young

…be without error in all of its correctly interpreted, actual claims. Think about how often evangelicals talk about their Bible’s reliability, truthfulness, or authority. Inerrancy is the concept their leaders use to legitimate such talk. Unity in these concerns, however, does not yield unity in the interpretation of the Bible or even in how to understand the nature of truth and inerrancy. Inerrancy itself is a contested, polemical landscape. One o…

New York Times Columnist Peter Steinfels’ Letter To RD; With Author Response

By Mark D. Jordan

…or anyone who has followed us this far. A prefatory note: My piece was not about Mr. Steinfels, much less about the whole of his remarkable career. Really, he was not at center stage—certainly not as the “whipping boy, from beginning to end.” He allows that I am a scholar, so perhaps he’ll concede that I wouldn’t attempt a bio-bibliographical conspectus of a prolific writer in a thousand words. (I’ve been known to take five thousand to explicate t…

“Those Federer Moments”: Sports, Sex, and the Gender of Grace

By Franklin Strong

…sixteenth minute of the most recent final in Vancouver. This one was less about the stakes and more about one player’s Federer-like command of the occasion. I mean, Carli Lloyd’s third goal, the one where, breaking free from a defender near midfield, she looked up and, noticing that Japan’s goalkeeper was stationed too far forward, sent a shot over that goalkeeper’s hands and right into the goal. You never see a play like that; it indicated that,…

The Queerness of Christian Ethics: A Conversation with Rev. Elizabeth Edman

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…lines between life and death. Then you’ve got these extraordinary stories about Jesus where he’s reaching out to people in a healing narrative. When Jesus talks with people about who a neighbor is, he is calling his followers to queer their conceptions of self and other. He told stories that flipped roles around, to get people to perceive that they weren’t in opposition to one another. In The Letter to the Galatians, Paul calls on people to dispe…

Thanksgiving Reveals More About Us Than About 17th Century Events

By Ed Simon

…tates.” Louis A. Ruprecht goes to the source of much contemporary thinking about this enigma, the steadfastly secular nation that has the soul of a church, when he writes about Robert Bellah, the sociologist who coined the term “American civil religion.” In Thanksgiving, even more than holidays like Independence Day, we have the High Holy Days of the American experiment. [Thanksgiving] lies at the very junctures Bellah outlined in his influential…