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‘Manufactured’ Smear Campaign Attempts to Intimidate Church ‘Fasting From Whiteness’— It Didn’t Work

…icture.” Another said “If I ever see you, I’m going to give you a slap. A slap like you wouldn’t believe.” Another person said that if he ever saw me he would “stomp your ass. People like you need to be stopped.” Multiple messages were simply one word: “standby.” To be clear, threatening people because you don’t like what they have to say is a crime. Threatening a church because you don’t like the way they practice Christianity is a crime. Our Con…

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Fear Not, The IRS Isn’t Colluding With Angry Atheists

…p, whose tax exempt status is under section (c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, risk their tax-exempt status if they use tax-exempt resources to endorse political candidates. Although the law is clear, no audits have been initiated since 2009, after a federal court ordered the agency to issue regulations clarifying requirements that audits of churches be authorized by an “appropriate high-level Treasury official.” During the uproar over the suppo…

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Catholics Talk About Sex

…aception as, “characteristic of a less than fully human way of acting, because it diminishes the need for reason and the use of the will to make responsible and truly loving decisions about how to use one’s God-given gift of sexuality.” As a moral theologian and sexual ethicist, I completely disagree. The ability of a young person to make a decision about any sexual behavior that includes protecting one’s self and partner from disease or pregnancy…

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Condoms and Common Sense

…ually that the Vatican feared that people would not be able to distinguish between the use of condoms to prevent the spread of a deadly disease and the use of contraceptives. There was more concern with the possibility of headlines that read “Church reverses stand on contraception” than with the millions who were dying. It will be seen as churlish in the face of the Pope’s welcome comments to point to the past (and probably to continuing sins) aro…

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Should Chaplains Be Involved in Psychedelic Experiences? Are ‘Trips’ Inherently Religious?

…as guides during an experience itself. Most of the discussion, however, focused on how chaplains might help users understand and integrate their experiences in light of pre-existing faith commitments. As trained caregivers, chaplains could play an important role in the newly-emerging psychedelic landscape, providing guidance to those who may choose to incorporate the use of psychedelics into their own spiritual journeys. We could perhaps think abo…

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South Asian Religious Leaders Challenged to Take on Stigma and Discrimination: Global LGBT Recap

…nings, glorifies crime, violence and denigrating acts against civility and promotes sex, lesbian sex and the use of inadequate objects in public.” Being gay or lesbian is not a crime in the Caribbean island but religious fundamentalists have grown increasingly vocal in their opposition to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues and have, as of late, targeted the openly gay U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic James “Wally” Brewster and…

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Why I Wrote the Freedom Seder And Why It’s Still Necessary 50 Years After Dr. King’s Assassination

…still higher pyramids of profit, I realize that never again can the Seder freeze. Now, again, we need a new Freedom Seder. “In every generation …” Indeed. What makes time and life into a spiral, instead of a straight line or an endless circle, is setting aside time for reflection, rest, renewal. That renewal-time—Shabbat, the Sabbath; each pause to bless Creation and say I-Thou before we make use of it; the Great Shabbat when, we are taught, we m…

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Graeme Wood on ISIS: No Such Thing as Objective Critique

…described the ‘Islamic State’ as “not Islamic” it was not necessarily because of a lack of understanding of the group, but because of an awareness of the power of his words to affect the lives of the millions of Muslims in America. Wood does not acknowledge the power his words have in constructing the “reality” they depict. That is, he is not simply describing the Truth, but helping to construct it. In her essay “Representing Fundamentalism: The…

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God is a Terrifying Monster, and Other Takeaways from the Study of Vampires in Pop Culture

…errifying monster of all, as the narrative of the flood and the plagues of Egypt (where Yahweh is referred to as the Destroyer) paint a frightening picture of an ancient deity. Judeo-Christian narratives and the horror genre are entangled chronicles of the unknown, of what lies beyond human understanding. As such, we can learn much about the former as we analyze the latter. And so the vampire becomes a lens through which to view death, questions o…

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A Devil’s Dozen of the Best ‘New Religion Journalism’ Books of the Decade

…th up close… [so that] The only way for us to satisfy our shock or hurt, caused by the gaping disparity between what we say about death and how it actually arrives, is to spend more time with the dying.” Bringing to bear her own experience as a hospice volunteer, and discussions about topics ranging from euthanasia to the Death Positivity Movement, The Good Death shows how the best of the New Religion Journalism understands that faith is inextrica…

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