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The Wrong Emperor: Why Ralph Reed’s New Pro-Trump Book Distorts the Bible to Cast the President as Tiberius

Ralph Reed’s new book, For God and Country: The Christian Case for Trump (published by Simon & Schuster in March 2020), doesn’t devote much energy to defending Trump’s moral character or articulating his role as an instrument chosen by God to save Christians. Instead, the notorious conservative lobbyist, evangelical apologist, and founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition doubles down on the toxic argument that Trump is an unlikely ally in the C…

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Who’s Afraid of Sacred Soccer?

…uddhists are doing that—nor is it only spirituality vaguely conceptualized—New Agers with crystals, meditation retreats for the professional class. Instead, both old and new media have lit up the religious landscape, illuminating what is still an unconventional, and nebulous, but certainly increasingly capacious, understanding of the sacred in everyday life. Rock and roll can be religious, according to The Hold Steady; a recent Los Angeles Times a…

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A Reforming Tradition Struggles With Change

…p called Lutheran CORE (formerly Coalition for Reform, now Coalition for Renewal) met in assembly in September of 2009 to discuss the possibility of forming a new Lutheran church body in North America. Those discussions resulted in the announcement of the North American Lutheran Church (NALC), which will include disaffected “confessional” Lutherans from the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Lutheran CORE will remain as a network for dissenting Lu…

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The Good Liberal Fear of a Yoga Planet

…part. Don’t ever give in to—dare I say it—opening your heart. The presumed New York Times reader is similar, I think: basically secular, basically liberal, and basically intellectual. S/he probably drinks a lot of coffee, spends a good deal of money on food and clothing, and is, in essence, a good person. But anything New Agey or touchy-feely—in fact, anything more demanding than whining about neuroses on the couch of a ritzy psychotherapist—well,…

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Jack Ryan Uses Bible to Exonerate Wall Street, CIA

…pulpy example of a larger pattern of scriptural citation that obscures and promotes tensions between market forces and nationalism, dynamics I discuss in depth in my book, The Babylon Complex (Oxford University Press, 2014). A reboot of the older Jack Ryan series—based on Tom Clancy novels like Hunt for Red October—Shadow Recruit uses an all new screenplay by Adam Cozad and David Koepp. Still, the film is highly reminiscent of the earlier series’…

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Religious Resistance to Bolivian Gender Law; US Religious Right Celebrates Court OK For Romanian Marriage Initiative; Will LGBTs Be Banned from Indonesian TV?; Global LGBT Recap

…ab.” Isle of Man: Marriage equality now in effect As of Friday, July 22, a new law allows same-sex couples to legally marry or choose a civil partnership. The Guardian’s Helen Pidd reports: Church of England ministers do not have to marry gay couples under the new law. The island’s bishop, who sits in the Manx parliament’s upper chamber, was one of a handful of representatives to oppose equal marriage… [Chief Minister Allan] Bell was one of a numb…

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Pope Praises ‘Complementarity’ & Resists Gay Ambassador; Irish Religious Leaders Spar Over Marriage; Colombian Atty Gen Cites ‘Bogus’ Study Opposing Adoption; Global LGBT Recap

…venues, the Black Cap pub, paying public tribute to “the drag queens of Stonewall.” Pink News reviews the LGBT stances of Northern Ireland’s political parties on LGBT issues and so-called “conscience clause” legislation, noting that North Ireland is the only part of the UK without marriage equality. Naith Payton writes that the largest, the Democratic Unionist Party, “has not mentioned LGBT issues at all in their manifesto.” They have historically…

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The Secret History of Easter

…o-Indo-European dawn goddesses (Any and all citations are from Wikipedia). New Testament scholars have noted that since The DaVinci Code became a cultural phenomenon, there’s been a surge of conspiratorial claims about Jesus, the early church, and the influence of Pagan mystery religions. Authors such as Craig Evans and Bart Ehrman have written with bewilderment at the revival of “mythicist” theories of Jesus and “nineteenth-century philosophical…

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Pope Francis, Breeding Bunnies and Ideological Colonization

…es. And for anyone who thinks that it’s a big breakthrough for the pope to promote “responsible parenthood,” here’s Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae: Married love, therefore, requires of husband and wife the full awareness of their obligations in the matter of responsible parenthood, which today, rightly enough, is much insisted upon, but which at the same time should be rightly understood. Thus, we do well to consider responsible parenthood in the l…

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Why Is Obama Reaching Out to Ravening Wolves?

…and we must rise—with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.—Abraham Lincoln, 1862 If you find it surprising that the Obamans have the time, let alone the patience, to spend today in a fiscal responsibility loya jirga with the likes of Nixon Commerce Secretary and Wall Street billionaire Peter G. “Pete” Peterson, you have every right to be surprised…

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