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Global Warming Denialists the New Creationists?

By Lauri Lebo

…argeted evolution for special scrutiny: After that, said Joshua Rosenau, a project director for the National Center for Science Education, he began noticing that attacks on climate change science were being packaged with criticism of evolution in curriculum initiatives. Last week South Dakota passed a resolution calling for the “balanced teaching of global warming in public schools.” But a quick read of the original House version of the legislatio…

Obama Under Fire From Civil Liberties Groups Over Faith-Based Policies

By Sarah Posner

…be used on secular programs. Religious supporters of a federal faith-based project immediately reacted negatively after Obama delivered that speech in Zanesville, Ohio in July 2008. Just as the campaign was trying to court these religious voters away from voting Republican, leaders complained to the campaign that such efforts to protect the civil liberties of beneficiaries, employees, and applicants would eliminate their interest in having a faith…

Islam, Meet Maureen Dowd

By Haroon Moghul

…itatively to all Muslims. As a legal religion with a spiritual and ethical project, Islam’s authority is embedded in practices, rituals, texts, scholars and Sufis, all tying themselves back to the Prophet Muhammad. (That is why neither Mecca nor Medina approximate the Vatican, or the Dalai Lama: Neither hosts nor represents a central Islamic authority.) But there’s more than just a poor series of contrasts, betraying an inability to grasp the fund…

On Zion’s Mount

By Jared Farmer

…and Displacement.” Not a marketable title, but a literal summation of the project. “On Zion’s Mount” is more metaphorical, and has multiple possible meanings. The phrase comes from a Mormon hymn: High on the mountain top a banner is unfurled. Ye nations, now look up; It waves to all the world In Deseret’s sweet, peaceful land, On Zion’s mount behold it stand! (“Deseret” was the name of the polity Mormons hoped to establish in the Great Basin.) Ho…

‘Christian Warriors’: Who Are The Hutaree Militia And Where Did They Come From?

By Chip Berlet

…e that sectors of the broad Patriot movement can work together on a common project without all of them actually agreeing on anything but stopping the secular liberal conspiracy to enslave America. The story embraced by the armed militias in the 1990s was that the government of the United States was part of a secret plan to establish a One Word Government as part of building a New World Order. The debate at the Patriot and militia meetings I attend…

Father Does Not Know Best: How To Fix the Catholic Church

By Mary E. Hunt

…alize with one another, vacation together, sometimes date each other. They project a holiness and piety that may or may not correspond with reality. They are also the object of plenty of projections. Lay people, including all sisters or nuns, are entirely outside of and considered below the clergy in ecclesial status. Until very recently, most high-level jobs in a diocese were reserved for clergy. For example, personal secretaries of bishops were…

Are They Jewish Bones? Battle for Separation of Synagogue & State in Israel

By Shalom Goldman

…nes of the Jewish dead, the group will demonstrate, and lobby, to stop the project at hand. Rabbi David Shmidel, the head of Atra Kadisha, recently told a gathering of thousands of supporters that archaeologists and all “those who treat the bones of Jews cavalierly are our enemies.” The bones that generated the latest controversy were found during construction of a hospital wing in the city of Ashkelon, on the Mediterranean. Barzilai Hospital, th…

Which is the ‘Real’ Reality?: Doctor Who Part IV

By Henry Jenkins

…fered both accusation and forgiveness, but also in the sense that often we project onto God the condemnation we feel is appropriate—whether directed toward ourselves or towards others. And so the latest episode of Doctor Who challenges us to reflect not only on the nature of reality and how to identify it, but on the question of what images we make of God (mentally more often than physically), and to recognize that the mask that constitutes our im…

Gov. Bobby Jindal and the Laying on of Hands

By Lauri Lebo

…ance from environmental science experts, who fear the $360 million barrier project would be ineffective and could even possibly make the situation worse. Of course, this is a typical response from Jindal, a creationist who is notoriously anti-science. Here is a link to the Family Forum article. If you scroll down to photo under “Let Us Pray!” you’ll see the laying on of hands on Gov. Jindal during the vigil. Hat tip to Barbara Forrest. Correction…

Religion or Ethics at the Supreme Court?

By Daniel Schultz

…nderstand it, at least — was that legal analysis has to engage the ethical project of weighing competing values and interests. Otherwise, it’s just bloodless technocracy, or worse, the raw assertion of power over the powerless. (Now who do you suppose that could have been a shot at?) There’s nothing inherently religious about that process. It’s true that for the foreseeable future, Supreme Court nominees are likely to come with religious affiliati…