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Thinking Clearly about Anti-Mormon Prejudice

By Joanna Brooks

…pared to racism. Perhaps what Mormons experience may be more appropriately compared to the nature of contemporary anti-Semitism, although I feel cautious even drawing this comparison given the tremendous scope of anti-Jewish violence and genocide in the twentieth century. The anti-Mormon violence of the nineteenth century, while deadly, simply does not compare. But anti-Mormon sentiment is real, and it does impact the way Mormons perceive ourselve…

Jesus, Carpet Bomb My Heart: An Undercover Muslim in Detroit

By Haroon Moghul

…From the involvement of US Army Lt. Gen. William Boykin (who has helpfully compared Islam to a diabolical religion), to a Michigan Call coordinator named Rick Warzywak (who believes that Christians should “go back and occupy or take back the land” of American Muslims), to a particularly weird twist on the theme of racial reconciliation (involving sending Detroit’s African-American Muslims, or ex-Muslims, to the Middle East), it was clear that this…

Why an Orthodox Anti-Gay Declaration is Actually Good for the Gays

By Jay Michaelson

…And once the data about ‘Reparative Therapy’ becomes better known, they will be left with only one: to follow the venerable rabbinic practice of reading texts as narrowly as possible when a broad reading harms human beings. (Compare Exod. 31:14 and Mishnah Makkot 1:10, Deut. 21:18-21 and BT Sanhedrin 71a.) There is a way forward for Orthodox rabbis confronting the reality of sexual diversity. And ironically, this cruel Declaration points it out….

Missing the Forest for the Witches

By Joseph Laycock

…a public library have been outsourced to a foreign corporation. How many Americans are affected everyday by Netsweeper’s system of categories? In rushing to compare this story with The Crucible, we may have ignored a greater similarity to 1984….

Romney’s Debate Coach and his Religion Answer

By Sarah Posner

…people the joy and — and — and opportunity that exists in this great land. Compare that to an answer he gave in an October 2011 debate, during the height of the firestorm over Pastor Robert Jeffress’s “cult” comments. The moderator had asked whether voters should care about a candidate’s religion: [T]he founders of this country went to great length to make sure — and even put it in the Constitution — that we would not choose people who represent u…

An Atheist Hero is Something to Be

By Carolyn S. Briggs

…nced that a movie would be more powerful in representing atheists than any number of books and speakers. You were at the national convention in Iowa. Some of the atheist speakers were pretty good, but you can’t compare any of them to a good preacher. I think atheism leaves out a whole emotional component from the argument. That’s wrong because some of the injury that religion causes is deeply emotional—children who have been killed in religious wa…

Bishops Release Religious Liberty Manifesto Vowing Disobedience to “Unjust Laws”

By Sarah Posner

…s objectors are entitled to ignore court rulings? Apparently they do. They compare themselves to the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., writing his letter from the Birmingham jail. They add: It is a sobering thing to contemplate our government enacting an unjust law. An unjust law cannot be obeyed. In the face of an unjust law, an accommodation is not to be sought, especially by resorting to equivocal words and deceptive practices. If we face today the…

Satire is Religion

By Austin Dacey

…on charges of “warring against God.” Libertarian Theology I don’t mean to compare Matt Stone and Trey Parker to towering reformers and prophets of history or to persecuted religious minorities today. I’m not suggesting that South Park has much of a theology beyond a lightweight libertarianism that says we can all get along so long as no one tries to “impose their beliefs” on anyone else. In practice, the creators seemed to acquiesce all too easil…

Mormons & Romney Presidency “Dangerous” According to Evangelical Author

By Joanna Brooks

…practice as Mormons collectively seek greater truth and understanding. You compare this to Mitt Romney’s infamous “flip-flopping” on issues like abortion rights and health care. Is it part of your worldview as an evangelical that God has finished speaking to human beings and that change is always a symptom of declension? WS: In general, the answer to that question is yes. Evangelicals believe that God in his mercy and good providence gave us the B…

‘Culting’: From Waco to Fundamentalist Mormons

By Catherine Wessinger

…ile 23 children ages 16 and under died in a fiery inferno) cannot help but compare these memories to recent images of the children of the Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) at the Yearning for Zion (YFZ) ranch near Eldorado, Texas. And surely it is the famous case of the Branch Davidians—a community also considered to be practicing polygamy, and accused of abusing children—that is on the minds of the Texas authorities now dealing with the YFZ…