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Crossing Denominational Lines to Reprimand “Freaky Fraus”

By Kathryn Joyce

…chbold of Creative Minority Report, a conservative Catholic blog voted the best new Catholic blog of 2008, applauded Runnion-Bareford’s testosterone-driven challenge to the womenpriests, calling it a display of “John Wayne style ecumenism” that the author (not short of hostility himself, with a flair for alliteration in naming the “womynpriests,” “batty babes in Beantown” and “freaky fraus”) could get behind. Archbold writes: Now this is my kind o…

Rick Warren’s Purpose-Driven Libido

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…atural thing to do.’ Well, just because it seems natural doesn’t mean it’s best for you or society.” From this precedent he argues that it’s natural for him to want to sleep with all the pretty women he sees. (Sorry, it’s not natural to want to sleep with ugly women and all who do are apparently “unnatural” in Warren’s world.) There are many problems with this argument but the main problem stems from the fallacy on which it’s based. Who has determ…

The Audacity of Melancholy: Race, Tragedy, and the Anguish of Progress

By Joseph Winters

…ve encouraged me throughout the writing process and my life. So I tried my best to be clear, accessible, and free of jargon while dealing with difficult authors and concepts. I don’t know if I was successful. Are you hoping to just inform readers? Entertain them? Piss them off? I suppose I am trying to be provocative, to please and disturb, to inform and unsettle. While I appreciate different styles of writing, I find most appealing writing format…

Khalifah: We Really Do Have Control Over Our Own Destiny

By Amina Wadud

…believe we live this life according to our own will and trust in the Lord. I just don’t get the idea that unless I get a specific, personal, one-on-one message, then I cannot do the best I can with what God has given me. But then, as all the great Muslim thinkers conclude at the end of their writings: Allah knows best….

How New Religions Are Made

By Jacob S. Dorman

…ral European occult practices, and freemasonry. Although Matthew tried his best to hide this religious bricolage, his papers offer a rare opportunity to see how new religions are made. Is there anything you had to leave out? Tons. I came to see Black Israelites as being very closely related to Black Muslims. Not only was there overlap between the groups’ memberships, but it was not uncommon for groups to blend elements of both Judaism and Islam in…

Does Mormonism Encourage LDS People to Lie?

By Joanna Brooks

…tered an old, familiar, sinking feeling. I tried to tell myself it was the best I could do. Was I lying for the Lord? Or was I a regular Mormon struggling to tell a complicated story to a world that often reduces us to stereotypes? What should I have said? Mitt Romney has said, “I can’t imagine anything more awful than polygamy”—even though polygamy remains a live element in Mormon doctrine and practice. Is that what he really believes? Is that wh…

Heaven On Earth: A Non-Hysterical History of Shari’ah

By Haroon Moghul

…ries, which always returns to the earliest generations for its proofs and ideals—it has no other common ground, in a sense. How then is Ibn Taymiyya any different? What makes him “radical”? Of course you’re right that appealing to Islam’s origins is an integral aspect of the faith. As I observe at one point, “respect for the salafs, the first generations of Muslims, is perfectly conventional among believers.” What made Ibn Taymiyya so remarkable w…

Despite Vastly Different Values, Evangelical ‘Hamilton’ Connects Secular Left and Christian Right

By Jake Johnson

…r point was that art may not survive democracy. Borders are necessary. Our best art and our best ideas ought to be kept out of reach if they’re to do any real work in the world. As it goes with art, so it is with religion. Give your beliefs a tough shell or skin and the uninvested (some say undeserving) will pass it by. Thick skin protects what’s inside by sometimes repulsing even those willing to give it a try. Thin-skinned ideas on the other han…

Growing Up Gay in 666: Fred Phelps in Retrospect

By Scott Blaine Swenson

…r Rev. Phelps it’s all about homosexuality. And the people who know Phelps best, his neighbors in Topeka 666 and some of his own children, will tell you it’s really all about Fred Phelps. The Attraction of Fear-Based Narratives “We were walking through the Phelps’ pickets with them screaming, ‘you’re going to die and go to Hell,’” says Rev. Ty Sweeting, pastor of Topeka’s Metropolitan Community Church (MCC). “After hearing that for about the twelf…

God’s Obituary: A Humanist Response to Mass Murder

By Anthony B. Pinn

…ble language to capture or explain. Sometimes it is in silence that we are best able to eulogize our collective loss, and to mourn our lack of power over the circumstances that lead to such destruction. To be sure, there were calls in the days after December 14 for this deep and meaningful silence. But what bothered me were the attempts to find space for a loving God in the context of this misery. I don’t mean the ridiculous and easily dismissed…