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Does Conservative Watchdog Actually “Get Religion”?

…doctrines and policies. But that doesn’t mean that he “gets religion” any better than the rest of us who report from the pews at the back of the worship hall, or from all of the unauthorized places—homes, schools, street corners, campuses, government—where religion wields major power. A few weeks ago, Mattingly criticized RD for running my story on a recently-installed, openly-gay Mormon congregational leader in San Francisco. Get Religion insist…

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The Unsung Speech at Notre Dame, A Postmortem

…up; or in her case, not. I suspect that Judge Noonan was considered a safe bet to balance the pro-choice president: an eminence gris whose conservative Catholic bona fides are polished by his claim that a fetus is essentially a person from the time of conception. Regardless of his intentions, anti-choice people must have been deeply disappointed that he did not take one for the team. Despite his valiant if ineffective effort to link anti-abortion…

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Tea Party Bullies on Homosexuality: “No Punishment Too Severe?”

…DeMint reportedly said that people encouraged him in his position limiting freedom for gays and lesbians, saying he “shouldn’t back down. [The people who agree with him] don’t want government purging their rights and their freedom to religion.” As I reported here months ago, DeMint has been using a Christian Reconstructionist group’s mailing list for fundraising, indicating that, at least in part, he thinks he and they are compatible. Reconstructi…

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Country Trumpkins

…the country and have decided to remain, or return after a few years away. Between the two groups, the self-understanding of the community becomes defined over and against urban life, for good reasons (wanting a small, caring community) and bad (wanting not to live next to black people). All of this can be dealt with, but change comes slow in rural areas. Think generations, rather than years, much less the lightning pace expected by the wired worl…

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Women’s Equality in the Church is No Longer Negotiable

…r what grounds them biologically. Being “created in the image of God” is a better bet. We are all learning together about this, some of us more willing to admit what we do not know than others. But we can certainly agree in the meantime that persons trump genitals, that competence and willingness to serve are far more relevant than gender identity when it comes to Christian life. This means ordination and decision making for women on a par with me…

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Akin and the God Factor

…mockery he has now attracted, this relatively obscure congressman whom I’d bet half the pundits discussing his fate today had barely heard of before his primary win, is a National Superstar, the very embodiment of the Christian Right’s all-too-often abandoned determination to stand up to GOP pols who forever pay them lip service but rarely deliver the goods. […] And if he does win, he will enter the Senate next year not as some random wingnut dude…

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The Death of a Secularist

…onse. In this, only the secular way of death fully honors the dead, where “better place” platitudes betray him. Thomas’ paradoxically titled “Refusal to Mourn” is in fact the refusal to mitigate grief, to paper over the universe’s forever-loss of singular person in guaze-promises of eternity: “I shall not murder/The mankind of her going with a grave truth.”   Yes, dying may be harder for the atheist. But what I cannot understand, and reject totall…

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Vatican Council on Women Would Be Funny Were it Not So Insulting

…olic terms, are not. Imagine a similar discussion of the masculine body. I bet the mere suggestion of penis enlargements as a moral issue for men would stop more conversations than it would start. Try a simple substitute of ‘masculine’ for ‘feminine’ in this section of the document: Plastic surgery that is not medico-therapeutic can be aggressive toward the masculine identity, showing a refusal of the body in as much as it is a refusal of the ‘sea…

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How the Religious (and ‘Nones’) Vote May Tip 6 Swing States

…p, probably along with white mainliners (52%) and white Catholics (51%). A better bet would be to connect with Hispanic Catholics (35%) and the sizable religiously unaffiliated (34%). Spotlight the Catholic congregations assisting Puerto Rican refugees and highlight Mike Pence’s threat to reproductive rights and education. Pennsylvania: With its highly religious—and highly conservative—central region balancing Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, Pennsylv…

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How Much is a (Progressive) Pastor Worth?

…. Braxton they will also think of a dollar sign. Is it a lot of money? You bet your sweet financial recession it is. But the church is betting that to be a big influential progressive church, they have to make a big financial investment in their leader. Is it too much? Most of his new congregation doesn’t seem to think so. As Braxton began to finish his sermon, you didn’t hear him so much as the congregation on its feet, cheering. Later that day,…

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