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Why I Boycotted a Conference at Brigham Young University

…from a group of present and former Mormon students who called themselves “Free BYU.” Because of a Brigham Young University policy, Mormon students who lose their faith, convert to another religion, or leave the church are automatically expelled from the University; and they lose their housing, scholarship, and campus jobs at the same time. This seemed so counter to the spirit of academic freedom—and to the very issues of religious liberty that th…

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New York City a Glenn Beck Radio Free Zone (for now)

…es, at least momentarily, the boroughs of New York City a Glenn Beck radio free zone.  (Word has it syndicators are looking for a new outlet.) Perhaps Beck’s self-styled turn to the prophetic last summer and fall—which included forays into the world of Black theology and the mysteries of the Bat Creek Stone, as well as his lachrymose and prayer-scented DC Rally in August —didn’t go over so well with hardboiled conservatives in the City? Beck’s tel…

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Supreme Court Rules Religion is Special… This Time

…ened to the community after-hours should make themselves available as rent-free houses of worship. If you treat religious worship as something different than, say, student theater workshops and local running clubs, the reasoning went, then you are discriminating against religion. The same line of thought informs the world of government-funded, faith-based social services. There is no difference between a secular nonprofit drug rehabilitation servi…

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Christian Morality vs. Free Markets: The Constants of a Conservative

…mainstream—interested in freedom as well as virtue. Do you see the tension between freedom and virtue as a philosophical dispute, or is it more of a pragmatic matter? That is, in your view, does the debate hinge more on principle, or electability? I agree wholeheartedly with your point about how touting rights and freedoms can soften the rhetoric of even the most traditionalist—perhaps theocratic—candidates. If memory serves, there was actually a…

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Historian John Ragosta Discusses the Context and Inspiration for ‘Religious Freedom’ in the U.S.

…rtunity. Of the three, he thought religious freedom was the foundation because without freedom to think and believe, you could not have the other two. A republic could not work if government and church officials (what Jefferson referred to as an alliance of “kings, nobles, and priests”) were trying to control what we think or prescribe what was the “best” religion or which people were the “best” citizens based upon their religious beliefs. If peop…

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How the Abortion Debate Turned the Christian Right On To Liberal Arguments… and Birthed the Religious Freedom Industry

…se in court and in politics. Now the SBC has largely shifted to defend the Free Exercise Clause exclusively, seeing no real threats to the Establishment Clause. This shift in advocacy corresponds with a major political change within the SBC, but it also corresponds with a change in approach to abortion, which seemed to drive the justification away from the separation position. Evangelicals became friendlier with Catholics during their shared labor…

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Space X and the Photo-Op: Trump’s Use of the Bible Was Just the Latest in a Series of Christian Nationalist Messages

…ace Force: God’s hand will guide these space soldiers in their “defense of freedom”—that is, the freedom of commercial enterprise. The administration advertised the biblical foundations of its protectionist pursuit of dominance in space with a ceremony at the Washington National Cathedral on January 12th, 2020. At an event that conflated Christian supremacism with American exceptionalism, the first Chief of Space Operations was sworn in on a King…

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Hulu’s ‘Hamilton’s Pharmacopeia’ Shows That We Can No Longer Ignore Connections Between Religion and Drugs

…ethamphetamine, xenon, ibogaine, bufotenine, and LSD. Although the show focuses on users and researches of the drugs in question, Morris often acts as a participant-observer, using the drugs himself to report their effects. Whatever the drug in question, however, the narrative always seems to circle back to questions relating to religion, in both explicit and inexplicit ways. Morris doesn’t so much present theses about the relationship between rel…

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Are Kosher Delis Like Catholic Hospitals?

…hypothetical and puts his finger on exactly how it distorts the interplay between the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause: The analogy to “forcing kosher delis to sell ham,” put forward by Bishop William Lori, exemplifies the way the problem is misunderstood. In America (unlike in Israel), people have the right to choose whether they want to sell ham and whether they want to consume it; neither option is proscribed. We all might agr…

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Should Evangelicals Smoke Pot?

…ouch says this: We at Christianity Today believe Christians are absolutely free to use marijuana (where legalized). And, when it comes to pot in our particular cultural context, we think it would be foolish to use that freedom. For the CT editors, the moral quality of marijuana use seems to depend entirely upon the “cultural context” in which it occurs. And since our particular context is not conducive to marijuana use, marijuana use would be “foo…

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