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Where are the Clergy? A Report from Occupy DC

By Sarah Posner

…are. Nonprofits providing social services—feeding or housing the homeless, helping unemployed with job hunting—are overwhelmed, with staffers working 50- to 60-hour weeks. His own participation “is not about me, I’m not like a lot of social justice people who come into a movement and are invested in taking it over so that donations can be brought to X,” said Merritt. “I was just more willing to come to offer whatever help. I will probably be bring…

Another Book Burner Lusts for Attention

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…ear in agreement with what we are doing. I may ask for your church’s name, phone number, and Web site to verify your stand. What I see as the sin at the heart of Grizzard and Jones’ actions—as well as at the heart of anyone who seeks to violently control the free will or belief of others—is lust. These men lust for control; and in their lust they objectify others, people they call “heretics” or “sinners.” Lust, in and of itself, is not a bad thing…

Romney Had No Clue as to Obama Ground Game

By Joanna Brooks

…n Ohio. And eavesdropped on an Obama canvasser. I mean, I spent 45 minutes phone-banking the parking garage of a lowly San Diego field office with four children under nine years old hopped up on Doritos and doing laps around my folding chair, and even under those suboptimal circumstances I could tell right away that Obama’s data was even better than it was in 2008 and that there was hardcore focus on the 18- to 29-year-old set. And, mind you, I’m…

Can You Make a Comedy About UFO Cult Mass Suicide?

By Joseph Laycock

…e meme. By portraying cult leaders as suicidal maniacs and cult members as helpless losers, these comedies reinforced a distinction between healthy, “normal” religion and deviant “cult” religion. Basically, these jokes relieve our anxiety that our own religious beliefs and practices might be just as strange as than those of the cult. But satire can just as easily call these distinctions into question. In 1998 The Simpsons aired an episode about cu…

“Reason to Worry”: An Anti-Semitism Scholar Opens Up on Trump, Misogyny and the Future of Anti-Judaism

By Michael Schulson

…s amount to the equivalent of however many billion sightings. I think that number was inflated. But it doesn’t matter much. What’s the difference between ten billion views and, say, one billion views? It’s all bad. It’s just this question of magnitude. It’s a little bit like you’ve seen the tip of the iceberg, and someone tells “You know, 90% of it is underneath.” I had a similar experience when I was working on my first book, Communities of Viole…

The ‘Evolving’ Story of Teacher Who Burned Cross into Student’s Arm

By Lauri Lebo

…when Mr. Freshwater burned a cross onto the arm of our child. This was done in science class in December 2007, where an electric shock machine was used to burn our child.” Dennis sighs on the phone when she thinks back on the past two years. “It’s changed our lives,” she said. “But I think we just had to do what’s right for our son. He was wronged.”…

Why It’s Heresy to Read the Bible Literally: An Interview with John Shelby Spong

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…ntroversial. I don’t like being controversial. I get abused a lot in mail, phone calls and that sort of thing. I don’t enjoy that. But, if you are controversial in the public arena, the people who have given up on Christianity say, “My God, there must be something more to this story than I realized.” So, being controversial is my doorway to the generation of my own children. “The primary issue in the Christian church today is to get away from orig…

Sean Feucht’s New Year’s Rockin’ Superspreader Revival is a ‘Tepid and Meager’ Effort at Racial Reconciliation

By Isaiah Murtaugh

…an alley in downtown Los Angeles, across the street from a bank and a cell phone store and a block away from a Little Tokyo walking mall. But up on a streetlight at the alley’s entrance, a city historical marker is tacked: Azusa St. Mission… Cradle of the Worldwide Pentecostal Movement. For some, this is sacred ground: the place where the Azusa Street Revival, the founding moment of the modern Pentecostal christian church, made its home in 1906, a…

Is Herman Cain’s Long-Running Minstrel Show Finally at an End?

By Anthea Butler

…d to hide his failings. Ginger White’s claims, backed up with receipts and phone records, are compelling. Besides, who would willingly admit that they had sex with THEHermanCain, besides Gloria, his wife, unless it was true. I sincerely hope that Cain gets a clue this week and drops out of the race for the sake of his family. I could care less who he decides to 999. Allowing his private dalliances to become a public spectacle while pretending to t…

Pro- and Anti-Muslim Sentiment in Gainesville

By Julie Ingersoll

…entified himself as a Christian of a distinct stripe by advocating burning phone books that advertise abortion and then said he doesn’t have a Qur’an but if he did he would “feed it page by page to (his) goat who would be impervious to its lies.” He then admitted he’d not read the Qur’an because he “doesn’t read fiction.” Another who insisted he didn’t “hate other religions or cultures” then argued that the “so-called Christians” (referring to the…