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In Praise of Failure: Is Defining Religion Such a Good Idea?

…a bit and think about language, since we are at least talking about how we use, or should use, words. Fully to appreciate what I am saying, know that here in Riverside County, California, I am writing close in time and space to the shootings in San Bernardino. I have been driven to distraction and anger by the way the word “terrorism” is kicked about. For example: mass shootings by a white Christian, “crazy, unexplainable,” but, mass shootings by…

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From Christian Temperance to D.A.R.E. — The War on Drugs Has its Roots in White Christian Nationalism

…still observing even as late as 1939. Gates was also the creator of Drug Abuse Resistance Education, better known to many Americans as D.A.R.E. The D.A.R.E. program began in Los Angeles in 1983 and placed uniformed police officers in classrooms to teach children about substance use, eventually evolving into a national program. (Remarkably little critical scholarship has been published about D.A.R.E.) Growing up in Indiana, I remember officers comi…

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Needle Exchange Gets Religion

…ice and without power,” said Iozzio. To do anything less than provide drug users, their co-users, sex partners, and children with the services that will reduce and/or remove the potential harms through needle exchange constitutes failure “to save human lives, to acknowledge the dignity of every human life, and to respond in solidarity to those who are marginalized by an addiction that places them and their associates at risk of life, limb, and lov…

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In Vitro v. Dignitas Personae: Teacher Fired for Fertility Treatment Sues Diocese

…rings us, finally, to the fundamental and intractable problem of religious freedom in a modern, contentious, pluralistic society. I expect many of us have some sense that St. Vincent school should be free to level religious conditions for employment even though we may disagree with the teachings on which those requirements are based. Oh, sure, the rules should be enforced in ways that are fair and above board. The rules should not simply provide a…

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Why I’m Not An Organ Donor

…the United States, you need financial and social resources. The organs are free—they’ve been donated—but the surgery, follow up visits, and medications are not free. They’re quite expensive. The estimated cost for a transplant and 180 days of follow up and medications ranges from $414,000 (kidney) to $1.3 million (heart), a cost that has to be found either in your bank account or in the bank account of your insurance company in order to get an org…

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Biblical Capitalism, Tony Perkins Edition

…esus “rejected collectivism and the mentality that has occupied America for the last few decades: that everyone gets a trophy – equal outcomes for inequitable performance.” Rather, Perkins maintains, “we are to “occupy,” not by railing against a free market system that rewards diligence, even though it is occasionally abused. Rather we are to occupy by  using that system ethically as a means to advance the interests of the one we serve.”  I’m sure…

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Porn, Abuse, or Just Plain Incompatibility… Is Divorce Ever a Sin?

…that 37% of all Americans consider it to be a sin to leave your spouse because of abuse within the relationship. That’s two points higher than those who think it’s a sin to ditch a spouse addicted to pornography. Thankfully, only 28% of pastors surveyed agreed, which is still too high for comfort. Still: Christians are much more likely to say divorce as a result of abuse is a sin than non-Christians (43% to 22%); within Christians, Evangelicals sa…

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WaPo OpEd: Pope Francis and the Koch Bros Love and Serve the Poor Together

…ess by supporting organizations that “bear the common mission of advancing free enterprise and free societies.” The Saemans write that “promoting limited government alongside the Kochs is an important part of heeding Pope Francis’s call to love and serve the poor.” This despite Francis’ unequivocal statements almost exactly a year ago in opposition to the “free enterprise” ideology: “Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assum…

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Historian: Evangelical Trump Fandom is No Deviation

…then, seeking a court, an institution really of the state, to preserve or promote such “freedoms” may be a last resort of conservative evangelicals. And I doubt that, in a dramatically changing and diversifying country, it will bring in substantial political or social rewards. But it may help evangelicals to retain what they have won over the better part of a century and still seek in thousands of small businesses and myriad business activities,…

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Rubio Is Confused About Christianity, Marriage Equality, and the Constitution

…xercise Clause protects religious practice and religious speech. Under the Free Speech Clause, the government cannot proscribe “hate speech” or even define it. Under the Establishment Clause, the government cannot endorse (or renounce) a particular religion. You can say gay people are intrinsically disordered. Or you can say they don’t have a constitutional right to get married. They can say you’re a homophobe. The government can’t stop any of you…

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