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Welcome to the Shari’ah Conspiracy Theory Industry

By Sarah Posner

…e of torture against detainees, has been defended by Gaffney, who told the American Family Association’s news service in 2003 that Boykin “clearly put his finger on the truth when he said his God is bigger than the god of Islam. The administration, he says, should not reprimand Boykin for telling the truth.” Never reprimanded, Boykin retired from the military in 2007. He recently told James Dobson on his radio program, “Islam is not a religion and…

From Organized Religion to Organizing Religion: Brian D. McLaren Wants Christians to Be Better

By Peter Laarman

…nes the status quo. That’s why I and so many others are working to build a new reality, a new possibility. It’s not easy; otherwise, it would have happened already. But I do believe it’s possible. I made the point in my review that some of the theological insights you bring to bear are powerful but not really new. Can you describe the theological work you tap into for the benefit of a wide audience? I worked hard to make the same point you make. E…

Ponzi Pastor, Bacon Terrorism, & Spiritual Jewelry

By Michael J. Altman

…er he defrauded parishioners in a Ponzi scheme. Archaeologists unearthed an 1800-year-old statue of the Buddha in India. In Iowa, a pastor is praying that the IRS comes after his church for his political campaign against three Iowa Supreme Court judges who ruled to allow same-sex marriages. The American Family Association has joined in the campaign against the judges. Finally, the words of one of the Chilean miners rescued after 69 days trapped in…

‘We’re all in this together’: The Perils of Kumbaya Rhetoric

By Peter Laarman

…ver gets around to telling us what’s specifically barbaric and cruel about American race-based capitalism. You can’t tame a monster that you don’t understand. And there’s no way to understand the extent to which this country leaves people to sink or swim on their own without an understanding of the centrality and continuing malignity of white supremacy. The malignity goes way beyond indifference to the poor; it expresses itself in active contempt…

Politics in a Fallen World: Lying, Fact-Checkers, and the Future of Civilization

By Michael Schulson

…r greed, deception, and capitalist success…and he’s running for president. For historians, the picture you are painting is determined by where you put the frame. Since I put the frame at 1800, I’m okay. But if I put it at 2016, I might be hanging myself. * * * Also on The Cubit: Donald Trump has turned Islam into the new communism…

Ross Douthat: Trump Is Women’s Fault for Not Having More Babies

By Patricia Miller

…usins, more people living longer and longer stretches on their own. It’s a new model of social life, a ‘post-familial’ revolution that’s unique to late modernity. What does this have to do with the election? Glad you asked: Human beings imagine and encounter the future most intensely through our own progeny … but when people think about the undiscovered America of the future, its strongest claim on them is one their own descendants make. If those…

Malta Adopts Marriage Equality Over Objections of Catholics and Evangelicals; And More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…behind.” A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department called reports of renewed extrajudicial killings “troubling”: Novaya Gazeta, an independent Russian newspaper, on Sunday published the names of 27 men who it said authorities shot to death in the Chechen capital of Grozny on Jan. 26. The Washington Blade has not been able to confirm reports that some of the men who were reportedly killed were gay. The Russian LGBT Network, a Moscow-based advoc…

How We Got to Super: Grant Morrison’s Visionary Gnosticism

By Jeffrey J. Kripal

…e—ours. Both the supernormal and the paranormal were later picked up by an American writer of glorious talent and wicked humor named Charles Fort. Charles sat in the New York Public Library every day for decades, reading pretty much every periodical in French and English back to 1800 as he looked for reports of “super-constructions in the sky” (what we would now call UFOs) and paranormal people. He found plenty of both. In works like The Book of t…

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ramadan

By Haroon Moghul

…overpray, and oversleep. But all the same, a practice as fulfilling and renewing as Ramadan inspires its own subculture (if that’s what you call the habits and norms of well over a billion people), so I’ve adapted a specialized Ramadan dictionary first featured on my incipient Tumblr blog, which can help you understand how Muslims experience this sacred time of year. ‘Tis the season… Anticipatory Iftar Induction Syndrome [AIIS]: Muslims can’t fo…

World Congress of Families Draws Anti-LGBT Activists to Budapest; More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…o a man and a woman. Australia: Tennis stars spar over marriage equality A new development in a long bitter public debate over marriage equality, former women’s tennis star Margaret Court, who is now a church pastor, said she would try to avoid flying Qantas airlines due to the company’s public stance in favor of marriage equality. In response, Martina Navratilova called for changing the name of the Margaret Court Arena, a site of the Australian O…