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“Taliban Dan’s” Teacher: Inside Bill Gothard’s Authoritarian Subculture

…ed objects, and by saying that “authority” is simply “love” and “love” is “freedom”—flies in the face of his critics’ descriptions of the impact of his authoritarian teachings on their lives. In interviews, former adherents to Gothard’s teachings, disillusioned former members of “ATI families,” and an evangelical critic told me that his unyielding theology, including “non-optional” compliance with seven “biblical” principles (the “basic” life prin…

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Democratic Hopeful Pete Buttigieg Makes Faith 101 Misstep

…t Buttigieg (and all the other candidates) to read Niebuhr’s Moral Man and Immoral Society, and internalize its lessons. Social leaders who want to effect meaningful change are condemned to represent the interests of their group, even though doing so might contradict their personal moral code. The short version of Niebuhr is that you can lead or you can have clean hands, not both. In 2019 America, that means you can embrace the people who are actu…

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Why I’m Grateful for 2012, The Rapture, and other Millennial Delusions

…ignificance is not support for communities of color or fairness in the tax code, but rather alignment with cosmic forces of enlightenment, it makes some sense. Post-millennial lefties tend to be really scary, or really wacky, or both. In pop culture, they inhabit films like Fight Club or the latest Batman flick: utopian idealists who will use any means, including violence, to bring about the transformation they seek. In practice, though, they tend…

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Warships, Animals, Pubs Eligible For Blessings From Church of England, But Not Same-Sex Couples; Global LGBT Recap

…of same-sex love, is a distant dream. This has created a society where gay freedoms — which can mean Grindr on one end, and the right to marriage on the other — are reduced to carnal pleasure. India, as a consequence, feels like a place where love and sex have parted ways, and where the arc of freedom is bending toward license. It is in this context that Mr. Johar’s equivocations acquire special meaning. He is not popular among activists and the i…

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Death Penalty Inconsistent with Life

…of injustice, often seek to hide behind self-righteous indignation—often a code word for revenge. That different segments of the population, of those whose votes the candidates want, choose to be for the death penalty, cannot be—is not—a valid reason for the candidates to oppose the decision of the Supreme Court against the death penalty. Please, politicians –elected and seeking to be elected—reconsider your position. I humbly make my own the word…

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Does ‘Criss-Cross Apple Sauce’ Make Yoga Secular? Opponents of Yoga in Public Schools Have a Point

…nterviewed). The 1993 Alabama State Department of Education Administrative Code prohibits public school personnel from using “any techniques that involve the induction of hypnotic states, guided imagery, meditation or yoga,” and defines yoga as “a Hindu philosophy and method of religious training in which eastern meditation and contemplation are joined with physical exercises, allegedly to facilitate the development of body-mind-spirit.” The propo…

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Declaring a Theological State of Emergency: Trump’s Ignorance Must Not Be Ours

…e of the Muslim faith mirrors that of many Americans. “Islam” has become a code word for terrorism. In fact, it is the name of a monotheistic faith tradition based on the Qur’an which is practiced by more than 1.6 billion people, nearly a quarter of the world. Its practitioners are referred to as Muslims. So our popular pedagogy must begin in order to right the wrongs of misinformation and demagoguery. Just as Christianity and Judaism have many ex…

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Why South Korea (and the US) Use Amusement Parks to Push Creationism

…demonstrates, are “myths,” or paradigmatic models of reality that help us code our visions of the world and inform our social vocabularies, conceptions of self, and varying personal relationships. One’s views about the origins of humanity signal special allegiance, at the moment, to a broad social collective and a general worldview. In short, whether you are a die-hard secularist or an adamant creationist, you subscribe to a large and complex nar…

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Are Social Issues Non-Issues?

…rence to “religious freedom” from Romney. Insiders know that the latter is code for exempting individuals and institutions from following government mandates on health care and provisions on anti-discrimination. But to the middle, Romney’s comment surely passed under the radar. And as for Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell, even Paul Ryan is for that now. All this in the shadow of an unprecedented legal war against women’s reproductive choices, and an ever-morp…

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Authoritarian Populism Vs Human Rights, The Campaign Against ‘Gender Ideology’ and More in Global LGBT Recap

…ed, part of a broad recognition of the rights of vulnerable people to live free from violence and discrimination. Mexico City is not part of any Mexican state. A documentary about a same-sex couple getting married in the town of Mexicali in Baja California has been released. “Etiqueta no rigurosa,” the debut for filmmaker Cristina Herrera Bórquez, “offers audiences a front row seat to the aggravating and bureaucratic nightmare that this couple fac…

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