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Why Crux‘s Knights of Columbus “Partnership” is Problematic

…ancis focus on his Easter message, and in the latest installment of “Papal Phone Calls,” Pope Francis called a sick seminarian and told him to “keep his chin up.” An analysis of the murder of a Congolese priest again focuses on anti-Christian attitudes and calls for a “new concept of martyrdom.” The focus of the site seems to be moving more toward being about Pope Francis and anti-Christian terrorism abroad, and less about the American church and…

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Jesus, Carpet Bomb My Heart: An Undercover Muslim in Detroit

…irmed the importance of what I was doing. I needed to see this for myself. Americans, and American Muslims especially, need to know how certain interpretations of professedly apolitical Christianity become allied to a far-right agenda of foreign wars and domestic austerity, glorifying the rich while demonizing the poor. Political Christianity’s treatment of Islam is one of the few points, and perhaps the only point, at which right-wing, political…

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The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right

…ok is devoted to outlining eliminationism in American history, from Native Americans and African Americans, through Chinese and Japanese immigrants and more. He shows how eliminationist rhetoric was often followed by “an actual campaign of violent eliminationism.” This history is presented with a note of urgency, because the eliminationist rhetoric as currently featured by elements of the conservative movement, “is in many ways,” he stresses, “the…

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‘Anti-Romeo’ Vigilante Squads Target Men Suspected Of Being Gay; More in the Global LGBT Recap

…married in first month; Lutheran priests barred from officiating More than 800 same-sex couples were married in March after marriage equality went into effect on the first of the month; 770 had already been in civil partnerships. The Lutheran Evangelical Church has decreed that priests are not permitted to marry same-sex couples and some bishops warned that those who do would face “consequences.” From a March 1 story: In spite of the church rulin…

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Ministries of Presence: A Report from Nepal

…e able to make on my own. A few days later, in the frenzy of the Kathmandu airport with scores of tourists trying to get out and battalions of aid workers trying to get in, we found each other and shared a taxi to an off-the-beaten-track hotel around the corner from where he was staying with friends not far from the Swayambhunath Temple famous for its historic sacred buildings and roving bands of ill-mannered monkeys. Pastor Gautham and Rekha Rai…

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The Sacred and the Dead: The Trouble with Sugar Magnolia

…rough years of conversations, we made it, song by song, through the entire American Beauty album. Steve passed away in June of this year. That was 15 years after our “Ripple” conversation, and today, there are hundreds of Dead songs on my phone and dozens of live recordings in playlists, even a nod when I see a Deadhead sticker on a car. I am a relapsed Catholic, and thanks to my friend, I am also a repentant Deadhead. Dear Jesus, let me confess:…

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End-Times Watcher Sees Satan in an Energy Drink

…anyone with understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a person. Its number is six hundred and sixty-six.” The author of Revelation meant that 666 was a person’s name turned into a number via the Jewish numerological practice of gematria. Since every Hebrew letter was also a number, the letters of a name could be added up to produce that person’s number. Here’s an example of gematria using an alphabet we’re more famil…

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Are American Christians “Persecuted”?

…hey don’t have it as bad as gays in ISIS-held territory. So let’s put that cheap argument to bed. At Patheos, Benjamin Corey shakes that cheap argument awake: Can we stop complaining about this bogus idea that American Christians are persecuted now? I mean, really. Can we stop? The world needs us to turn from ourselves and focus on this real persecution, because it’s evil and must be exposed and stopped. However, our own self-centeredness as Ameri…

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What To Do When Fred Phelps Arrives in Your Neighborhood

…l or fantasy football, I thought this sport could become a virtual part of American civil religion. The Holy Trinity of American Sports as Craig Forney has phrased it in his book (subtitled Civil Religion in Football, Baseball, and Basketball) are everywhere in their fantasy forms these days. Since each can each be seen as a core part of American civil or cultural religion, why not their fantasy versions?  And, since dissent is a crucial aspect of…

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Welcome to the Shari’ah Conspiracy Theory Industry

…onstitution.” Based on the “explanatory memorandum” document identifying a number of American Muslim organizations as allies in its author’s aspirations, prosecutors in the Holy Land Foundation trial publicly labeled over 200 American Muslim organizations “unindicted co-conspirators,” a highly controversial move derided at the time by legal experts as contrary to Justice Department policy and in violation of the groups’ constitutional rights. Even…

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