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Argue-by-Number: A Suggestion for the Church

By Mark D. Jordan

…ople will be persuaded by the repetition. Most of us know that persuasion happens in other, more private ways. It happens, for example, when someone close to you—a child, a sibling, a parent—declares themselves to you, ‘comes out’ to you, often in a moment marked by anguish and anxiety. “Here is a secret about how I love. Will you still love me after hearing it?” Or persuasion comes about when a respected church leader—a pastor, a teacher, a music…

This is not a Religion Column: Sarah Palin, American

By Jeff Sharlet

…h better than the varnished surface which blinks in the sunlight of public approval.” That’s not to say Peg was a sweetie underneath. He was an angry man through and through, born into hatred of Hearst inherited from his father, responsible for the “Hearst Style,” a populist tongue of blood and cliché, expressive of the sentiments of working people but emptied of any real political content, and forever ashamed of that invention; he’d damn it in it…

Tinkering with Creation: Intelligent Design 2.0

By Lauri Lebo

…answer everything. Of course, that doesn’t mean that they are not actively promoting the use of “supplemental materials” like pro-intelligent design textbooks such as Pandas and People, used in Dover, and its follow-up, The Design of Life. Evangelicals may not realize it, but such an approach is a risky strategy. It’s not just bad science, it’s bad theology. Such dichotomy forces students to choose between faith and science. After Dover’s trial wa…

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

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…ross the United States is the great variety of manners in which religions happen in and through their rituals and practices, through their symbolic and communal exchanges, and, yes, in light of and sometimes in spite of their in-the-head beliefs. Two of the more usefully analytic definitions of religion that I offer my students, which is not to say they are the “right” ones, come from Catherine Albanese, Professor of American Religious History at…

Layoffs on the Religious Right

By Bill Berkowitz

…ons, among religions, among cultures, for an interfaith dialogue and I am happy to report to you that the following month, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously approved our resolution calling for an interfaith dialogue among the great religions of the world. The news hook? Bartholomew’s report pointed out that in July of this year, the Muslim World League held a global interfaith dialogue meeting in Madrid, during which time, as Arab Ne…

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…

Gimme That Old Spice Religion

By Frederick Clarkson

…candidate about their political, religious, and social views.” But as it happens, it was precisely those views that led to his win. The Manly Theocrat Matthew Chancey is an aspiring religious right politician who hails from some of the most unusual and archaic precincts of modern American religious, political, and social life. These precincts apparently turned out for him during a “get out the vote” campaign in the 48 hours before the contest dea…

Gay: The Superior Lifestyle

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…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.” What our community is fighting for is our freedom to not be abused in the name of religion and to not have our freedoms curtailed or denied in the name o…

Is Christianity Simply About God Entering the Uterus of a Jewish Virgin?

By Eric Reitan

…e following: the Inventor of the laws of physics and Programmer of the DNA code decided to enter the uterus of a Jewish virgin, got himself born, then deliberately had himself tortured and executed because he couldn’t think of a better way to forgive the theft of an apple, committed at the instigation of a talking snake. Since I live in Oklahoma (the purported Buckle of the Bible Belt), one might expect that Dawkins was envisioning a neighborhood…

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

By Nathan Schneider

…eo for heresy or opposing stem-cell research. The speeches, which usually happen at the most inappropriate times and places, are merely the tip of the iceberg from the pages-long monologues in Brown’s book. But then there’s a giant plot twist. The Illuminati, we learn, are extinct after all. Their resurrection was the invention of a zealous priest who was appalled that his Pope had shown interest in the theo-physicist’s experiment. Apparently forg…