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High Ark: A Geologist on the True Meaning of Noah’s Flood

By Brook Wilensky-Lanford

…hool. So it was refreshing to discover that there was more complexity, back-and-forth, cross-pollination in the history. I like surprises. You have this great phrase, you say that creationists are “one of the most recently evolved species” of Christian. What do you mean by this? Well the creationists have chosen to go back to a literal interpretation of the flood story, using arguments that were recognized and rejected in the 1780s. Throughout tha…

When Mormons Mobilize: Anti-Gay Marriage Prop. 8 Effort ‘Outed’?

By Joanna Brooks

…oters and to commit “yes” voters to display “Yes on 8” lawn signs. The door-to-door voter identification campaign continued through September. Mormon volunteers were coached to avoid disclosing their ties to the LDS Church. “When we went to our training meetings, they said, don’t bring up the fact that you’re Mormon. Don’t wear white shirts and ties; don’t look like missionaries. When you go out [canvassing], bring a non-member friend. When you’re…

Obama to Cave on Bush Tax Cuts: Letter to the Washingtonians, Chapter 1

By Daniel Schultz

…is perilously close to all against all, where only the strong and the well-connected can look ahead with some measure of security. Those who cannot—the young, the sick, the victims of layoffs and mergers and jobs leaving the nation—lose their houses, their savings, their opportunities, their futures. We drown in a sea of personal debt, live in fear of an accident or an expensive illness, despair of being able to find a steady job or retiring, let…

Much-Married Newt Gingrich Converts to Catholicism

By Bill Berkowitz

…ek — hasn’t compromised his predilection for going for the jugular. Whether it’s insisting that “[T]here is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us” — as he told Fox’s Bill O’Reilly shortly after the passage of California’s anti-same-sex marriage constitutional amendment— or claiming that President Barack Obama was paving the road toward a new power-grabbing dictatorship, or feigning outrage that O…

Conservative Christian Teenagers Prepare for Politics

By Robert Kunzman

…experience combines online components with periodic opportunities for face-to-face interaction and real-world political engagement. The online elements of the program include civics coursework, adult-moderated “chats” about current events, and thousands of bulletin-board forums where students can post entries on topics ranging from immigration reform and international relations to popular movies and rules for courtship. The real power of the GenJ…

Gay, Christian, Pagan, Artist: How Matt Morris Defies the Borders of Spiritual Identity

By Jesse James DeConto

…do.” This is a common (and potent) critique of the church in our spiritual-but-not-religious age. Do you think that the American church can recover from it? I think it depends on whether the American church decides to live into an identity that affirms the love of God for all people. It’s not like it’s a wound from the past. It’s a wound in the present. Everyone wants live into Easter, but no one wants to be on Good Friday. Everyone wants to live…

Sometimes You Can’t Say a Word

By Jonathan L. Walton

…the beautiful brown faces of Barack, Michelle, Malia and Sasha walked hand-in-hand upon the national stage. And one had the feeling that the human dignity and personality of America’s darker-hued sons and daughters who have done so much to shape this nation was finally being affirmed in the highest institutional form possible. This moment could not be obscured by over analysis. Neither should it have been negated by punditry and pontification. Ra…

Gen X, Gadgets, and God

By Elizabeth Drescher

…that. Besides, all of these platforms invite engagement outside of the face-to-face community. They extend the community into the day-to-day lives of believers, so they’re important for ongoing connection, but they’re not necessarily going to invite people in. (Indeed, I’m aware of a number of churches whose social networking site pages are closed to outsiders. Hmmm?) A modestly tech-savvy minister will eventually come to the conclusion that engag…

Republicans in Favor of Reproductive Rights

By Katie Toth

…of Republicans and 50 percent of the general population identified as “pro-life”; the number of Americans who identified as “pro-choice” hit a record low. But respondents’ opinions on policy issues around abortion had not drastically changed from previous years. Just over half of Americans think abortion should be “legal under certain” circumstances, only 2 percent more people than last year. Meanwhile, 25 percent of Americans (compared to 27 per…

Good Mourning Modeled by Chaplains and Clergy at the Oakland Ghost Ship Fire

By Kaya Oakes

…Federation of Fire Chaplains explains on their web site that they are “non-denominational, non-sectarian,” and do not compromise people’s “belief or convictions.” When it became clear that many people in the Oakland warehouse known as Ghost Ship were young artists, Landeza and other chaplains at the site understood that even if they were religious themselves, they needed to “appreciate the diversity” of Oakland, which is ethnic and cultural, but…