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How Conservative Christian Women Came to Claim “True” Feminism

…e. That was where my interest in rhetoric really began. I thought that the best way to dissect the persuasive power of the Christian Right was to choose a particularly influential group that was not only representative of the larger movement, but one that held formidable influence over the sex and gender issues that are so central to almost every other platform that the movement supports. CWA was a natural choice: it has a noteworthy presence on c…

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Trump’s Evangelical Support in the Gut, not the Theology

…ly ugly and offered with a sneer. The irony is that the candidates who are best at affect-masking this year (Rubio and Kasich) are falling behind. They seem moderate, which would make them palatable in November. But the Republican rank and file—including a plurality of right-wing evangelicals—don’t want politicians who seem moderate. They want the masks off and the lights on; they want double the fury, double the contempt, double the fear. Trump’s…

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Why We Must Reclaim “Religious Freedom” from Christian Conservatives

…njoying refugee status in the United States is an affront to our country’s best traditions and aspirations for religious freedom and equality under the law. President Obama rightly said there should be no “religious test” in our policies on these matters. But Senator Ted Cruz, among others, has said in response to the Syrian refugee crisis that the U.S. could limit refugees to Christians. I am reminded of the Spanish Inquisition in which Jews and…

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Everything You Think You Know About the Dark Ages is Wrong

…Gerbert questioned authority. He experimented. To learn which of two rules best calculated the area of an equilateral triangle, he cut out square inches of parchment and measured the triangle with them. To learn why organ pipes do not behave acoustically like strings, he built models and devised an equation. (A modern physicist who checked his result calls it ingenious, if labor-intensive.)  Gerbert made sighting tubes to observe the stars and con…

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Islamophobia and Racism: Civil Rights at the Breaking Point

…intention is to show them the truth, no matter how unpleasant. I tried my best to deliver the truth as it was told to me by the dozens of advocates I spoke with, and as I saw it in the archival record. If I am even partially successful, then anyone who reads the book will want to learn more about what these remarkable advocates are doing. I hope some will get inspired to become more personally involved in the struggle against Islamophobia. What a…

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The Revolujah! Will Be Performed: Reverend Billy’s Reality Joke

…on of performance and preaching. How would you characterize it? KL: At his best, Reverend Billy is the love child of Billy Graham and Allen Ginsberg. I think he, like many American activists, is invested in a sort of self-promoting iconoclasm in order to bring about greater equality. Like many American preachers, he invents a new consensus in his speech in order to develop the broadest base. And, like many in the avant-garde, he suggests his perso…

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The Case for Treating Near-Death Experiences Like Acid Trips

…nre of first-hand accounts of near-death journeys to a supernatural realm. Best-selling books including Proof of Heaven, The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven, and Heaven Is For Real share two elements, which are both captured in this trailer for the 2014 film adaptation of Heaven Is For Real : First, these accounts of near-death experiences emphasize how close the person was to biological death. It was a “miracle” that young Colton even survived, jus…

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The Trouble With Harry (Potter): Religious Conservatives Do Have Something to Fear

…ean here the unreconstructed monotheistic God) has no role whatsoever. The best man wins the duel—or rather, the man with the best wand.          Now, one could, of course, make the same claims about comic-book sagas like Superman or Batman. Why should Harry Potter have to take any more refuge in the numinous than Kal-El or Bruce Wayne?  Well, because there is something intrinsically religious about the Potter series; and I don’t just mean the rab…

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The Two Faces of New Atheism

…int that the New Atheism crosses the line and undermines its own effort to promote critical thinking. The problem with an exclusively negative approach to religion is twofold. First, while it helps sell books, it risks promoting intolerance and potentially even hatred of religious people. Atheists will point out that they do not fly planes into buildings or murder doctors, as some religious fundamentalists have done. However, it takes one visit to…

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“The Camp Is a Ceremony”: A Report From Standing Rock

…les, are banned. Rather, the camp is a ceremony, a call to bring forth the best in each of us, and to act accordingly. We are encouraged to live our entire lives as ceremony by one of the elders, in a mode that reminds me of the sacramental life—all of life and all of creation as a sacrament. And that means moderation in our participation of the dynamics that enable the Black Snake of Hopi prophecy. From what I could gather the Black Snake is both…

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