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Pop-Culture Angels Are More Than Just Embarrassing Kitsch

…y from Victorian sentimentalism. Such angels are on sale at reduced price; cheap wares for cheap faith. It would be an error, however, to fully dismiss pop culture angels. Despite the fact that representations of angels in film and television, comics and music, paperback novels and posters, are filtered through market concerns, such pop culture can still speak to human meaning—and because of that they merit our attention. Besides, the bulk of art…

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Colonialism and the Crisis Inside the Crisis of Catholic Sexual Abuse

…ests who, during the twentieth century, were employed across 6 dioceses in Pennsylvania. It records their alleged crimes—and those of bishops who protected them—in excruciating detail. From the vantage point of Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I live and teach, the grand jury report provides not only a horrific portrait of some parts of Catholic life in a mid-Atlantic state; it offers reminders too of the devastating and often overlooked history of…

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‘Joel’s Army’ Is Already Here: The Obscure 20th Century Religious Movement That Profoundly Influences The Right’s Cosmic Battle

…” A different kind of example comes from Earl Hixon, a leader in the small Pennsylvania-based Global Community Network. Hixon has established what he calls a “Strategic War Room in London, England for the end time army, according to Joel 2.” Hixon is perhaps best-known for his leadership of The Shofar Army, which performed at events featuring unsuccessful Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano in 2022. Hixon called Mastriano, “our new…

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From Shofars to Hammers: The Spiritual Warriors of MAGA are ‘ReAwakening’ to Political Violence

…16 US cities, drawing sold-out crowds at every stop, with regularly priced tickets ranging between $250 and $500. It is arguably the dominant brand of today’s Republican Party. For good reason, a growing number of expert observers have begun sounding the alarm. I suggest it’s time we hit the panic button. The rally featured plenty of repugnant elements—from the relentless attacks on transgender youth consistent with fascist scapegoating, to the st…

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How Much Did Jesus Care About Sex?

…cost of true discipleship. The price it was called upon to pay was all too cheap…We gave away the word and sacraments wholesale; we baptized, confirmed, and absolved a whole nation unasked and without condition…Was there ever a more terrible and disastrous instance of Christianizing the world than this? It’s regrettable, I think, that “cheap grace” has turned into a kind of meme that Rod Dreher can toss into his debate with Andrew Sullivan without…

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Beyond Alarmism and Denial in the Dominionism Debate

…church, they’re marinating, so to speak, in the the various teachings of a number of people. I’ve covered many an event where I’ve been waiting in line to get in, and the inevitable conversation with the people around you goes something like this: they ask first where you go to church, and second which teachers you admire, and then you get into a long conversation about the relative virtues of all of them. A really good example of how all these te…

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Episcopal Church Assault Data Reveals the Dark Side of Inclusive Christianity

…a random sample size and therefore isn’t statistically representative. The number of individuals reporting victimization in Episcopal spaces is alarming nonetheless. However, I would argue the data is more likely to under- than to overestimate the scope of the abuse that occurs. To see why, the survey results must be interpreted in light of the Episcopal Church’s larger culture of inaction around sexual violence. See no evil, hear no evil… LGBTQ+…

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Florida Gov Cozies to Local Tea Party Xenophobes

…ck Scott announced his proposed budget in front of tea partiers in central Florida, instead of in Tallahassee where the budget has been announced in the past. Clearly designed as pageantry to flatter the tea partiers, the Governor boasted some $5.2 billion in cuts (only to later have to admit that the number was inflated and that the cuts were “only” $3.5 billion). The announcement of our state budget, by the way, was held in the Eustis First Bapt…

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Sacred Texting: When Religious Writ Gets Wired

…ability of cell phones to be used for impure activities, some Jewish cell-phone users have requested so-called “kosher” phones. The idea is to offer conservative Jews a phone that is free of “corrupting influences” of the sort that are already avoided by ultra-orthodox Jews through a ban on television and some radio. Reuters reported in February 2008 that Bezeq Israel Telecom launched a new “kosher” landline phone service, which will block calls…

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