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But What About the Parents? New York Times Falls Into the Anti-Trans ‘Parents’ Rights’ Trap

…aker’s reporting indicates, because the parents “accepted their teenager’s new gender identity,” even if “not without trepidation.” His mother, after all, was just concerned that the school might be putting her child “on a path the school wasn’t qualified to oversee.” And if parents like her join up with the Christian Right to protect their “parental rights” and start voting for Republicans—as some of the mostly “liberal” parents interviewed for B…

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The Master: “It’s Not the L. Ron Story”

…other reason that Anderson deserves recognition as an honorary scholar of new religious movements is that his curiosity about new religions has brought him into conflict with a culture that still approaches the religious other through an un-nuanced “us vs. them” mentality. Most religion scholars who deal heavily with new religious movements have been branded as “cult apologists” at some point in their careers. At stake in this accusation is an as…

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Updated: New Riverside Pastor Steps Down; Where Does That Leave Progressive Christianity?

…rgy, and commissions as we enter a period of reflection, transition, and renewal. Blessings, Jean L. Schmidt Chair, Church Council _____ Dear Riversiders: After considerable prayer and reflection, I believe that resigning my position as Senior Minister of the Riverside Church is the right thing to do for the congregation, my family, and me at this time. My hope is that the congregation will be able to address its internal tensions so that the chur…

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The New Disciples: Report from South Carolina

…y candidacy. But since his spectacular free-fall, some of the most visible promoters of The Response have abandoned him for other candidates: Don Wildmon, the founder of the virulently anti-gay American Family Association, which bankrolled the event, endorsed Newt Gingrich just before the Iowa caucuses. Jim Garlow, the California megachurch pastor who campaigned vigorously for the anti-gay marriage Proposition 8 (who also heads Gingrich’s nonprofi…

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Wannabi+Jihadi+Hoodlum= Wajihoodlum

…vehicle was a Muslim, who emigrated from Senegal. I remember returning to New York from Boston after 9/11. The fact that I was a New Yorker trumped any other identification I had — both race and religion. It was understood that I shared in the grief of the city and was committed to rebuilding. I also remember the city being one of the least fear-filled places in the country after the attack on the Twin Towers. The goal of terrorists is not to kil…

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The Belly of the Beast: NYC’s Shiny New Transit Hub Is All Wrong for the 9/11 Site

…he proud twin towers of the World Trade Center proclaimed the dominance of New York City’s finance industry. But what we remember is the horrifying day all the unsuspecting people in those towers were attacked—and the number of New York’s finest who lost their lives helping people to safety. This is a city that values sticking up for one another. We don’t look back on 9/11 with fond nostalgia for our financial monoliths; we remember the pain, the…

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Is Bill Barr’s Belief in a Powerful President Actually Religious? A ‘High Papal’ Fable

…ient truth. Another weakness in Holland’s claim that the emergence of “the new suffering Christ” was a “new and momentous understanding” is that so many of the cases recounted in the book’s 21 chapters have actually little or nothing to do with “the new suffering Christ.” If this new image matters as much as Holland claims, why not all the principal cases, instead of just some? Yet, even those cases in which the “crucified Christ” figures don’t al…

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Ask the Dust: Unbelievers, Bunker-Dwellers, Anti-Natalists

…imits and used by the group to make me feel shameful I can’t entertain any new ideas that don’t come from the group or group leader I can’t talk to my parents (I mean more than I couldn’t talk to them before) I’ve developed new coping mechanisms to get through things in the group that make me uncomfortable a la Kimmy Schmidt’s “You can stand anything for 10 seconds. Then you just start on a new 10 seconds.” I’m considering participating in a group…

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Is God a Delusion? A Reply to Religion’s Cultured Despisers

…ship of educated people who were interested in the questions raised by the new atheists. And I wanted both theists and atheists to find the book challenging and thought-provoking. Some recent responses to the new atheists are full of rhetorical jabs and belligerent verbal attacks clearly meant to appeal to a loyal following of believers, readers who want to cheer and pump their fists as “their guy” strikes back against the opponent. People who are…

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Dominion Theology, Christian Reconstructionism, and the New Apostolic Reformation

…itten extensively about Reconstructionists and Sarah has written about the New Apostolic Reformation here and here. Moreover Sarah and Anthea Butler have just posted a terrific overview of the NAR, Pentecostalism, and dominionism in which they critique both the denialists who say that dominionism doesn’t exist, and alarmists who fail to properly contextualize dominionists’ activities. Christian Reconstructionism is the older of the two movements (…

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