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Destruction, Or, Why Do Fundamentalists Seem To Enjoy Blowing Things Up?

…as defined by the empire, then it will bear decisively upon sociology because the freedom of God will surface in the brickyards and manifest itself as justice and compassion. Just so. The “still-speaking” God is a far bigger threat to fundamentalists than any statue or untapped oil reserve. God is free, and so are we. Neither Taliban nor American fundagelicals can rest easy while that proclamation is on the loose. P.S. Devilstower passes on an ex…

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Free Yiddish Lessons, Vacation Liberty School, and Brangelina’s Universalism: The Week in Religion, Poetically

…ula, California is facing opposition from the Baptist church next door because of “the whole issue of Islam and what it stands for.” It seems it’d be easier to build mosques if they didn’t have any connection to Islam. In New York, the Cordoba House mosque (a.k.a. the dreaded “Ground Zero Mosque”) is still embroiled in controversy. The latest blocking strategy has been to apply for landmark status for the current building on the site. Echoing the…

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Praying To The God Of The SUV

…rity discounts the reality of free will. The hijackers on September 11 had free will: they used it to hijack planes and fly them into buildings. The people going to work had free will: some called in sick, some had tight shoes and stopped for a Band-Aid. Some got to work early or came in on a day off. If God has granted us free will, then God must stand back and let us use it. Any other action means that we are simply automatons. There would be no…

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My Business, Myself: Piercing the Corporate Veil

…. If the First Amendment has been interpreted to guarantee a corporation’s free speech rights, does it also have free religious exercise rights guaranteed by the same Amendment? Annex Medical claims it does, citing as evidence its formal Mission Statement to manufacture medical products of high quality and good value, while conducting business in a way that is pleasing to God and is faithful to Biblical principles and values. We will accomplish th…

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New York City a Glenn Beck Radio Free Zone (for now)

…es, at least momentarily, the boroughs of New York City a Glenn Beck radio free zone.  (Word has it syndicators are looking for a new outlet.) Perhaps Beck’s self-styled turn to the prophetic last summer and fall—which included forays into the world of Black theology and the mysteries of the Bat Creek Stone, as well as his lachrymose and prayer-scented DC Rally in August —didn’t go over so well with hardboiled conservatives in the City? Beck’s tel…

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Historian John Ragosta Discusses the Context and Inspiration for ‘Religious Freedom’ in the U.S.

…rtunity. Of the three, he thought religious freedom was the foundation because without freedom to think and believe, you could not have the other two. A republic could not work if government and church officials (what Jefferson referred to as an alliance of “kings, nobles, and priests”) were trying to control what we think or prescribe what was the “best” religion or which people were the “best” citizens based upon their religious beliefs. If peop…

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Republicans To Get Free “Spiritual, Historical” Trips to Israel

…ining sustainable freedom is righteousness — the same virtue that produced freedom — what is the greatest threat to freedom? Unrighteousness. America has left God.” Lane also aims to persuade 1,000 pastors to run for political office. Lane has already taken Rand Paul to Israel, after which the Kentucky Republican said, “Absolutely we stand with Israel. What I think we should do is announce to the world — and I think it is pretty well known — that…

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How the Abortion Debate Turned the Christian Right On To Liberal Arguments… and Birthed the Religious Freedom Industry

…se in court and in politics. Now the SBC has largely shifted to defend the Free Exercise Clause exclusively, seeing no real threats to the Establishment Clause. This shift in advocacy corresponds with a major political change within the SBC, but it also corresponds with a change in approach to abortion, which seemed to drive the justification away from the separation position. Evangelicals became friendlier with Catholics during their shared labor…

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Jewish Studies Is a Free-Speech Zone, and It Needs to Stay That Way

…ing Jewish life on college campuses. While I was aware of their efforts to promote certain discourses and to curtail others, I largely left them alone. This was perhaps made easier on my campus because Hillel does not really bring in speakers—on top of the fact that I have the privilege to teach some of the brightest students I have ever encountered. Many of my Jewish students here are searchers, trying to make sense of their religion and to make…

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Pulitzer-Prize Winning Historian’s Latest Reveals the Problem with Today’s ‘Religious Freedom’

…than a historical summation, described by Rakove thusly: “Disestablishment promoted free exercise, and free exercise made establishment superfluous.” Beyond Belief recounts this history, and, while Rakove touches on the present, his focus is the past. But it’s impossible to read Beyond Belief and not notice that, in their desperation to “make America great again” Trump, Pence, and the other Christian nationalist politicians and judges have turned…

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