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Does War Make Sense? Science and Religion on the Battlefield

By Nathan Schneider

…life. But it has also made the prospect of a meaningful exit strategy ever more remote. The old American theology of manifest destiny has swelled to insist that our bases abroad are there by divinely-ordained right. We’re now almost a decade into an Orwellian state of perpetual war-at-a-distance. Yet Bousquet writes that we are still only in the “birth pangs” of the chaoplexic paradigm. God save us from what this baby looks like when it’s born; an…

Burning Down the Temple: Religion and Irony in Black Rock City

By Sarah M. Pike

…ansfixed by the fire. Each year I find the temple and its fiery demise the most moving experience on the playa; even if someone is hollering obnoxiously or playing with a laser pointer. If every other playa site invites irreverence and irony, this is still the one that takes meaning most seriously. It is a site of both voyeurism and participation, where our deepest fears and most painful losses are aired publicly and work together to create Burnin…

What a Turn-of-the-Century Anti-Abortion and Contraception Crusader Reveals About GOP Efforts to Ban Abortion Pills by Mail

By Steven K. Green

…one of the more powerful and feared people in American society. The most famous moral reformer of the Gilded Age, Comstock was the founder of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice and a special agent for the US Post Office who mounted a nationwide crusade to suppress the circulation of anything he personally found to be morally reprehensible. He often claimed he was merely performing God’s will in an ongoing war against sin. Using an 18…

Refusing the Monsters on Maple Street: A First-Person Commentary from the Mass Hysteria at JFK

By Marion Grau

…e a site of terror for me, but one of encounter. What can equip us to deal more productively with the vagaries of catastrophe, of emergency, and how can we be more resilient in the face of contingency and the fragility of life? There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. —1 John 4:18 “There is no fear in love.” That really says it for me, each…

An Open Letter to CEO Jeff Smisek On United Airlines’ Blasphemous Safety Video

By Austin Dacey

…rge Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” the majestic opening melody of the slow movement, the andantino moderato. From the first moments, it was obvious that the sonorous orchestral instrumentation had been replaced by the sheen of digital keyboards. By the time the music reached the third measure, I sensed the dawning of something even more hideous. The melody disappeared entirely to make way for the announcer’s voiceover—“Please make sure your phone…

Invited by Allah

By Amina Wadud

…te, we don’t have it back yet, but you got the visa.” !!!! I know she said more, something about the package. But I just wanted to get off the phone, so I could say out loud a soft, “yes!”, make a silent prayer of gratitude, and then just cry a little. I dressed in white to attend Friday prayer (not as the imam, mind you). Then later in the day, the mailman delivered my unscented cosmetics, from the Labayk Company; and my shoes came by parcel post…

Gingrich Downplays Adelson Money, Stokes Fear of “Second Holocaust” at Florida Church

By Sarah Posner

…reat posing the risk of a second Holocaust.” The audience reacted with an emotional “yes.” Gingrich may not be their Esther, but he certainly knows how to eclipse the concern over the Adelson gambling money. If the polls are right, Gingrich won’t be able to catch Romney here in Florida. And while Gingrich appeared to redeem himself at Aloma Church from a tepid debate performance Thursday night, every voter I spoke to—pro-Santorum, pro-Gingrich, an…

Innocuous SCOTUS Ruling Opens Door For Discriminatory Religious Institutions to Access Public Funds

By Sunnivie Brydum

…ble to secular groups equally available to religious groups “raises an enormous number of church-state questions,” Platt added. “And it really puts the state into a very tenuous position, in terms of other potential Establishment Clause violations.” That was essentially the argument advanced by Missouri’s former solicitor general (who argued the case from a position that Missouri’s new governor officially abandoned). But the argument didn’t seem t…

‘Anti-Romeo’ Vigilante Squads Target Men Suspected Of Being Gay; More in the Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…x couples married in first month; Lutheran priests barred from officiating More than 800 same-sex couples were married in March after marriage equality went into effect on the first of the month; 770 had already been in civil partnerships. The Lutheran Evangelical Church has decreed that priests are not permitted to marry same-sex couples and some bishops warned that those who do would face “consequences.” From a March 1 story: In spite of the chu…

Snake-Handlers, False Messiahs, and a Few Great Souls: 14 Who Died in 2014

By Daniel Silliman

…of Spiritual Inner Awareness (MSIA), John-Roger Hinkins died at 80. Raised Mormon, Hinkins was a high school teacher in Southern California when he discovered “soul consciousness.”He founded MSIA—pronounced “messiah”—in 1971, teaching one could achieve a totally positive state of being with the help of the Mystical Traveler Consciousness he embodied. MSIA attracted celebrity followers including Carl Wilson of the Beach Boys, Huffington Post founde…