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Common Ground: Winning the Battle, Losing the Culture War

By Chip Berlet

…it up to retrograde TMS (Testosterone Madness Syndrome), the root cause of most Internet flame wars. There is unfinished business on this topic for the religious left, however, and it needs to be explored before we reach out to find common ground with opponents of abortion. The debate on the religious left needs to be shifted to focus on simple strategic questions: What will move our society toward increased social and economic justice, ecological…

Record Number of Stealth Creationism Bills Introduced in 2011

By Lauri Lebo

…n Tennessee, which says that educators may not be prohibited from “helping students understand, analyze, critique and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught.” As always, since intelligent design was ruled unconstitutional in Kitzmiller v. Dover, the introduced bills rely on such creationist code words as “teaching the controversy,” “academi…

How an 1843 Revelation on Polygamy Poses a Serious Challenge to Modern Mormonism

By Benjamin E. Park

…est to purge the state of polygamists, adopting, as noted above, America’s most strident anti-polygamy policies. Part of that drive was due to the state constitution’s explicit criminalization of polygamy. But another part, and perhaps a major driver within the LDS portion of the agitation, is modern Mormonism’s continued anxiety over the practice itself. Though an official manifesto publicly ended the practice of plural marriage in 1890, and a se…

“Paleo” is More Than a Fad Diet: Boyd Eaton’s Plan to Return to Eden

By Michael Schulson

…vigor of preagricultural hunters and gatherers. Today, Paleo is one of the most influential dietary trends in the country, with as many as three million followers and a disproportionate cultural influence. And while it’s easy to mock Paleo as the retrograde fantasy of Patagonia-jacketed professionals who buy fifty-dollar grass-fed steaks and imagine themselves loping across a Paleolithic savannah as they strain through a CrossFit workout, the life…

Busy Days For ‘eBay of Prophecy’

By Bill Berkowitz

…om’s front page features a slew of bad-news articles with headlines that almo*]}*st make you wish for the End Times to come already! A savvy entrepreneur, Strandberg has bought up a number of Internet addresses including AntiAntichrist, Tribulationus and RaptureMe, in case RaptureReady.com crashes from the traffic after the Rapture. As of November 19, The Rapture Index stood at 159 down from a 2008 high of 170 and up from a 2005 low of 143. Strandberg…

Six Overlooked Gems from the Future of World Religions Report

By Timothy King

…a projected 18 million women. The “unaffiliated” category will benefit the most from the “switchers” with a net gain of 61.5 million, many of them men and women who formerly identified as Christian. But by 2050 the “unaffiliated” are expected to comprise an older (and less fertile) demographic that won’t be able to welcome new folks to their team fast enough to sustain that kind of growth in the long term, according to the report. But statistics a…

Offer to Lesbian Scholar Rescinded by Jesuit School

By Mary E. Hunt

…logist, a specialist in gender, sexuality, and religion—and a lesbian. The most explicit reason given by Marquette President Robert Wild, S.J., was, “We found some strongly negative statements about marriage and family,” in her academic writings. What are they? Why do they matter? And since when does any academic institution have the right to offer a job—then rescind it—for what look to be discriminatory reasons? More is on the line than Dr. O’Bri…

The Fundamental(ist) Optimist President

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…king another tumble this morning, reaching depths not imagined even by the most stalwart of doomsayers, the US President delivered a short morning address (tellingly, when no one would really be paying attention, as Wall Street brokers scurrying on the floor of the Exchange clearly were not), in which he insisted that: 1) “we’re all in this together”; and 2) that he’s still “fundamentally optimistic.” And why not? The one thing the ideologue and t…

Rick Warren and The (Necessary) Narcissism of Faith

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…“me.” A prayer that began with all of us, narrowed itself to the Judeo-Christian monotheist, then more narrowly still on the Christian, then more narrowly still on that faith as experienced by Rick Warren himself. It is a stunning rhetorical achievement. This is my prayer, offered to my God, the truth spoken as I see it, regardless of whom it may offend or exclude. It would be fine thing to initiate a discussion about whether this an appropriate p…

Archbishop Drops the Girl Scouts Amid Alarmist Rhetoric and Fake Accusations

By Patricia Miller

…decide the fate of Girl Scout troops in their dioceses. The Archdiocese of St. Louis has urged parishes to drop the Girl Scouts and individual churches have dropped the organization, but Naumann, who claims the diocese has spent “hundreds of hours researching concerns” about the Girl Scouts, is the first Catholic prelate to mandate the removal of the Girl Scouts from all Catholic parishes in a diocese. But by buying into the alarmist rhetoric of o…