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Damned if You Do, Damned if You Don’t: The Problem of the Rape Exception

…id she have the kind of consensual hetero sex that is rather like a mobile phone contract with a hidden pregnancy fee buried in the contract? [shrug] Nobody held a gun to her head, so she has no right to complain… or, you know, make her own healthcare decisions. (The crassest versions of this argument are those dazzlingly astute Didn’t want ____? You shouldn’t have had sex! lines of logic that crop up in every mainstream newspaper comment thread a…

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An Immigrant’s Tale: The Pull of the Homeland

…not-religion so very clearly and abruptly. We didn’t have to change in the phone booth, as it were, into the non-religious as we transitioned abruptly from ritual to rat race. It was not so very problematic for one to bleed over into the other. And during Ramadan, we grew up to expect lighter workloads. Migrant workers in certain Gulf countries learned to expect total lack of productivity and sometimes a complete absence of office workers during R…

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The Only Religion Question Reporters and Debate Moderators Should Ask Presidential Candidates (Kim Davis Edition)

…at PR; it portrays her as the victim of an overzealous, anti-religion government, fitting right into a conservative frame about both the role of government and faith in the public square. But at its heart, though, this argument isn’t about what the Constitution, particularly the religion clauses, mean. It’s an argument about biblical supremacy over civil law. It’s an argument over who has “authority” or “jurisdiction” to decide matters relating to…

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Another Book Burner Lusts for Attention

…ear in agreement with what we are doing. I may ask for your church’s name, phone number, and Web site to verify your stand. What I see as the sin at the heart of Grizzard and Jones’ actions—as well as at the heart of anyone who seeks to violently control the free will or belief of others—is lust. These men lust for control; and in their lust they objectify others, people they call “heretics” or “sinners.” Lust, in and of itself, is not a bad thing…

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Ralph Reed’s Group Goes after “Union Thugs” in Wisconsin

…tate to vote for candidates who share our values of lower taxes, less government, faith, and who will stand up to union thugs who support Obama’s tax and spend solutions.  We need your financial support to make our Wisconsin get-out-the-vote program work. Lower taxes, less government, faith. Just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, the Koch brothers-backed group that backed the election of Scott W…

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Playing God in the Wild Kingdom

…at cross purposes. My first thought was to kick myself for leaving my cell phone behind. This would have made a terrific picture. My second thought was to find a less obtrusive spot where I could watch to see how this excruciatingly slow drama would play out. But before I could move, my husband drifted up behind me in his kayak, took one look at the frog and snake and muttered, “I can’t take this.” Over my objections (“But it’s nature!”) Jeff stre…

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Church Uses Facebook for Sacramental Scrutiny at its Peril

…focus of sacramental censure for Cihak and his family.  The ethical environment of the new media world is early in its evolution, with occasions of cyber-bullying, cyber-stalking, and other nefarious digitally-enabled transgressions rightly causing concern. But the overall culture of the internet, as it has morphed into social and mobile forms that have shaped relational practice both on- and offline, has generally retained the democratic, collab…

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Pope’s ‘Joy of Love’ Brings Little Joy To LGBT Catholics; Gay Atheist Malaysian Granted Refugee Status In Canada; Global LGBT Recap

…s right in front of us, difference is on our iPads, in our laptops, in our phones. We hold a whole world of difference every time we open a phone. And the response to in the world around is at best insult, and so often violence, a reality which is the living experience of many you here. Welby also addressed a January gathering of Primates, which voted to suspend the Episcopal Church from questions on doctrine or policy for three years because of i…

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A Year After the Non-Apocalypse: Where Are They Now?

…to Wal-Mart, ate pizza in their hotel rooms, spent hours with them on the phone. Then, after Jesus was a no-show, I stayed in contact with them—the ones who would talk to me, anyway—over the following days and months, checking back in to see how or if their thinking had changed. I learned a lot about the seductive power of radical belief, the inscrutable vagaries of biblical interpretation, and how our minds can shape reality to fit a narrative….

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A Religious History of American Neuroscience

…me in the SPR threw themselves behind a new contraption called the “psycho-phone” through which the inventors claimed to be hearing the voices of angels. The psychophone no doubt sounds absurd, but I can’t say that it sounds much more far-fetched than a transcranial magnetic stimulator. Both demonstrate the enduring cultural impulse toward techno-theologizing. However much neuroscientists might want to forswear an interest in the metaphysics of th…

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