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New Creationist Museum Undermines… Religion

By Joseph Laycock

…public” while Rick Deighton speaks of “censored science not shown in state-sponsored museums.” Ironically, the Museum’s website bemoans that the country is facing “a crisis of science literacy” reflected by poor state test scores–without acknowledging how the rhetorical maneuvers of Creationists deliberately sow confusion about what constitutes a scientific worldview. Karen Armstrong has framed Fundamentalism as a confounding of mythos–a way of k…

Faith-Based Initiatives in the Obama Administration?

By Bill Berkowitz

…y too big for government to solve alone,” Obama said. “We need an all-hands-on-deck approach.” A few weeks after President Bush took office in 2001, he issued an executive order creating the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. One initiative’s major goal was the shrinking of government by farming out social safety net services to religious organizations, including many conservative Christian groups. It was also geared towa…

The Vampire Who Beat Wells Fargo

By Joseph Laycock

…using their powers to protect mortals from other, more evil vampires. Self-identified, real-world vampires (strange as they might seem) may currently be more trusted than the blood-sucking banks, making Rodgers’ victory over Wells Fargo a teachable moment. Many lament that America has become “tribalized,” with individuals thinking solely in terms of their own interests and identity groups. But perhaps as outrage over financial irresponsibility co…

What’s Wrong with Taming the Tongue? ‘Gossip’ and the Limits of Evangelical Abuse Prevention Efforts

By Chrissy Stroop

…ry conservative, with its occasional milquetoast criticism of former abuser-in-chief Donald Trump being undermined by, for example, contributing editor Ed Stetzer writing explicitly of his support for the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to a stolen Supreme Court seat. Embodying this same vacillation between contradictory impulses, Shellnutt’s article reads somewhat like one of Tevye’s monologues in Fiddler on the Roof. “Christians are right to heed…

First Baptist Church, Sutherland Springs Texas

Can Government Solve The Evil Of Mass Shootings? A Response to Mollie Hemingway

By Daniel Schultz

…aith properties… and by denomination? The interminable debate about prayers-vs.-action was back, too. As soon as politicians started tweeting their standard lines about “thoughts and prayers” going out to the families of the victims, other users responded that this response wasn’t good enough. They included Max Boot, who is not exactly a flaming liberal: I’m sick & tired of “thoughts and prayers” for mass shooting victims. What we need: legislatio…

Catholics Have Stopped Confessing

By Kate Childs Graham

…three cases involve sexual sins. Here are the cases that the penitentiary deals with: A man who directly participated in abortion (through, for instance, funding) and wants to enter priesthood A priest who has broken the seal of confession and revealed the sin and the sinner A priest who has offered absolution to their own sexual partner Someone was has desecrated the Eucharist Someone who has attempted to murder the pope. According to Cardinal J…

Latest Book on Evangelical ‘Extremism’ Reflects Pervasive Tendency to Beat Up on Judaism to Save Jesus

By Greg Carey

…oaches this path when, referring to the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), he writes, “Two thousand years after Jesus told that parable, religious leaders were still failing to tend to their own, and [religious] outsiders were still showing the type of neighborly compassion that God requires of us.” Healthy biblical interpretation tends to promote introspection. Rather than turn the Bible against religious and social others, Christians…

When the ‘Biblical View’ for Evangelicals Was That Life Begins at Birth

By Jonathan Dudley

…l Right to neutralize previous, Bible-based reservations about Catholic pro-life activism. By 1980, Jerry Falwell was off to the races. “The Bible clearly states that life begins at conception,” he declared in his book Listen America! Abortion “is murder according to the Word of God.” Falwell’s major reference for this claim was Psalm 139:13, where the author writes that God “knit me together in my mother’s womb.” Most biblical scholars, however,…

Will the Taliban Actually Remain Somewhat Moderate This Time?

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…ere is in fact an indigenous movement in Afghanistan that calls itself ISIS-Khorasan (Khorasan is the 6th century designation for a region that stretched from Eastern Iran through Afghanistan to Central Asia). But this ISIS-K is led by renegade former Taliban militants, and is a rival of the Taliban, so they will likely try to co-opt or destroy it. So the Taliban will not become ISIS, but it could rule like ISIS, as it did twenty years ago, or it…

Howling at the Moon

By Amina Wadud

…t. The other rationale stems from the origins of the word zakah, which is Z-K-Y, to purify, or make pure. This is the way the third pillar of Islam or zakah, or ritual charity or almsgiving, works. The idea behind it is clear: by paying this amount, those with the means purify the remainder of their wealth. This is an annual ritual most often organized around the same time as the end of the month or Ramadan. So people have to start figuring it out…