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Despising the Holidays: When Christians Led the ‘War on Christmas’

…became the equivalent of a blockbuster. In the chaos of the era print was cheap and plentiful, and the collapse of the licensing laws insured a degree of free speech hitherto unknown in the British Isles. The World Turned Upside Down would prove so enduring that it has been an English folk ballad for more than 350 years. The song’s opening verse, “Holy-dayes are despis’d, new fashions are devis’d. /Old Christmas is kicked out of Town” remains per…

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There’s No Business Like the Bible Business: 200 Years of the ABS

…cts, images of a white dude who is supposed to be Jesus, and so on and on. Numbers appear through this book, sometimes with numbing frequency and volume. Thousands of Bibles in the early years of the ABS; tens of thousands some decades later; millions and millions through the course of the twentieth century. The numbers document the stunning capacity of the ABS to flood the zone with Scriptures. Through the book, the ABS accomplished exactly that…

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The Problem with Christian Gentlemen: A Short Goodbye to Ted Cruz, the “Mr. Pecksniff” of Presidential Politics

…d self-congratulation. Dickens makes the most of Pecksniff by giving him a number of interior monologues, as here when Pecksniff is rationalizing his decision to pimp out his younger daughter at a rather cheap dowry price to a rich but grotesquely uncouth suitor: All his life long he had been walking up and down the narrow ways and by-places, with a hook in one hand and a crook in the other, scraping all sorts of valuable odds and ends into his po…

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After Orlando: Love Wins, But When?

…ut the same law that buys a venison steak in the Great Northwoods brings a cheap Taurus pistol to Baltimore, to people who also feel unheard and neglected. (Never mind the strange psychology of the “lone wolf.”) So the freedom to live without threat and the freedom to own a gun are at odds. Someone will have to win and someone will have to lose. I mean this quite literally. The only way to have meaningful gun control will be to vote people out of…

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Holding Out for a Hero: New ID Book Aims to Save You From Despair of Evolution

…nremarkable button marked “God made proteins.” But salvation is not such a cheap, glib thing. Those who are serious about salvation are serious about creating the conditions of genuine ease and assurance for others in the face of their deepest terrors and despairs. What this requires is much more difficult, interesting, and rewarding than trying to win the same tired arguments about the structure of molecules. What is needed, for theists and athei…

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Just Like January 6, One of the Most Disturbing Aspects of the Right-Wing Coup Attempt in Germany is Who Was Behind It

…tails ties to the Reichsbürger milieu. Experts attribute the stark rise in numbers to a heightened awareness and the agencies’ attempts to reduce the number of unreported cases. The conservative Minister of the interior of the previous Merkel administration, Horst Seehofer, had always refused to conduct a study of right-wing sentiments in the police and military, in spite of the warnings of social scientists who urged him to commission one. For ye…

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A Startling Number Believe You Can Be Jewish Jesus Follower; Why It’s Not As Crazy As It Sounds

…that number seems staggeringly high. A full third? Once you delve into the numbers, though, 34% doesn’t seem quite so high. Really, Pew has asked an excellent question—a question that reveals the full tangle of ambiguities and inconsistencies that surround the topic of Jewish identity. First, some background: when the researchers at Pew set out to conduct this survey, they quickly ran into a problem that’s been under discussion for at least two th…

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Why are Nuns and Monks in the Streets? (Parts I & II)

…he early afternoon, cameras in hand. It is not uncommon for tourists to outnumber monks in the debate courtyards during this time. This is obviously disruptive, making a spectacle out of a serious educational pursuit. Monastic response to the Chinese government policy of limiting monastic enrollments is at least in part the result of a clash between the secular, materialist, security-concerned worldview of the Chinese state, and the religious, tra…

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2017 Around the World: Progress and Persecution For LGBT People

…granted by Italian civil liberties group CILD was Wajahat Abbas Kazmi, “a Pakistani activist and director who has been working in Italy for many years.” The group cited his Allah Loves Equality project, which challenges religious fundamentalism and giving voice to “the many Muslim believers who defy religious intolerance and fanaticism every day.” According to the group, “Wajahat Abbas is making an important contribution to the affirmation of the…

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Where Is American Christian Outrage on Russia’s Treatment of Jehovah’s Witnesses?

…CPCs in 2018, which included countries like Iran, China, North Korea, and Pakistan. But Secretary of State Mike Pompeo placed Russia and Uzbekistan on a “Special Watch List,” rather than identifying them as CPCs. Even without the CPC designation, Russian officials could face financial consequences under the Magnitsky Act. Passed by the U.S. Congress in 2012, the act calls for sanctioning Russian officials responsible for “gross human rights viola…

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