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Shopping for Your Kids, Bioethically Speaking

…brokers therein, pay for the ‘best’ eggs and sperm you can afford from the best sources (‘best’ as determined by things like the jobs and grades of those whose sperm and eggs you are ‘using’), find a fertility clinic, pay the clinic to mix the eggs and sperm and put the resulting fertilized eggs into a surrogate mom (found, for example, at the Center for Surrogate Parenting) whom you are also (usually, but not always) paying. Then wait. More and m…

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How To Talk To “Nones” and Influence People: Rob Bell’s Transrational Experience

…tant regional manager of an insurance company—he actually says this—be the best assistant regional manager of an insurance company you can be. Work on something called your “craft.” (Even the insurance agent has a craft.) Also, pay attention to the details of life. Use the fine china. Unplug and play with your kids. Take a “Sabbath” from email. And you, too, will learn how to be here. Rob Bell, for most of us, will be best known as the guy who dec…

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Paul Weyrich, “Godfather” of Modern Conservative Movement, Dead at 66

…of times because we still live in the greatest nation on earth. It is the best of years because we have the freedom to speak our minds. It is the best of years because we can organize as we see fit to support the political candidates of our choice.” Frederick Clarkson, a longtime observer of and writer about right-wing movements, pointed out that Weyrich “was a catalyst for pulling together the disparate parts of the conservative movement into a…

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Some Of My Best Friends Are Nazi Reenactors! And Soft Porn Producers!

Rich Iott, the Republican House candidate in Ohio’s 9th district who has been discovered to enjoy Nazi war reenactments in his spare time, has enlisted a Jewish friend to defend him on his campaign website. Coming to the defense of Iott, the tea party candidate who has apparently scared the bejeezus out of Republican whip Eric Cantor, is Richard Gabai, a Hollywood actor, writer, and producer known (or perhaps not) for titles such as Assault of th…

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Year-End Best Books in Race and Religion in American History

With all the memes wishing a good riddance to 2016, and John Oliver’s epic send-off to this annus horribilis, it may seem small comfort that this was a year that might be remembered as one of the most important in a long time in my corner of the scholarly universe: for works that illuminate race and religion in America, and for books reinterpreting African American religious history for a new, more disillusioned generation. If you surmise this co…

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But ‘Natural’ is Better, No? ‘How Faith in Nature’s Goodness Leads to Harmful Fads, Unjust Laws, and Flawed Science’

…I think it’s incredibly important with food to realize that perhaps what’s best for the world is not best for our individual health, or perhaps the thing that tastes best is not the most natural thing or the most beautiful thing. I actually found that the people who understand [this] most are the food producers… I went to Polyface Farms, the most organic farm you could possibly imagine. [Owner/operator Joel Salatin] really is trying to harmonize w…

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Religion Profs Critique PBS’ God Documentary, Call it Simplistic

…ple and more themes and more issues into the curriculum. But we don’t. Our best books and our best courses articulate clean, sharp arguments, have lively and engaging narratives, and are relevant. PBS is shooting for exactly the same thing. I hope that academics will view this documentary as a step in the right direction. PBS has spent millions of dollars and solicited the advice of many of the best scholars in the nation in search of God in Ameri…

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The Conservative Bible Project: Looking for Conservative Diamonds in a Liberal Dung-Hill

…Jesus taught parables about the “free market” (a late-medieval concept at best), and that the Bible includes “later-inserted liberal passages.” In describing the project, Schlafly has repeatedly cited two such “liberal” passages: the story of Jesus saving an adulteress from being stoned in John 7:53-8:11, and Luke 23:34, where Jesus asks God to forgive his crucifiers, “for they know not what they do.” Schlafly is right to point out that neither p…

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Beliefnet’s Oscars

…than a little random. In each of the three categories—Best Spiritual Film, Best Spiritual Performance, and Best Spiritual Documentary—there are some puzzling choices, and some even more puzzling omissions. Take the Best Spiritual Performance category. The judges picked Emile Hirsch for Into the Wild, which is a pretty sensible choice, though his character’s spiritual quest ends in tragedy. But the People’s Choice winner was Will Smith for his role…

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A Call for Heresy

…itten? Yes. Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera. It’s the best love story I’ve read. This may sound totally unrelated to my work on Islam, globalization, heresy, etc., but what more powerful theme in life than love? It is love that we need—real, palpable love, with uncontrollable passions and total surrender to the pull of emotions. This may be the best antidote to the cold passions of war, terrorism, and violence in general. To b…

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