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Religion or Insanity? Two Upcoming Murder Trials Will Ask the (Burning) Question

By Joseph Laycock

…re attempting to kill herself. Christensen claimed she was responding to a phone call from her husband, a pastor, who announced that the world was ending and to get the family ready. Cases such as this raise questions that have long gone unanswered about how the state should define “religion.” By what criteria should we decide whether deviant beliefs and actions are an expression of religion or evidence of a medical problem? Dr. Kolchak points out…

I Owe, Therefore I Am: Why Struggling Against the Banks is a Holy Obligation

By Peter Laarman

…is eliminated provided that hoarding, or surplus accumulation, is also eliminated. The manna reminds Israel that the purpose of economic organization is to guarantee enough for everyone, not to create opportunities for the strong to exploit the weak. Integral to the manna story is the Sabbath principle: our labor is interrupted each week to remind us the divine economy of abundance for all. The weekly Sabbath in turn leads to the biblical Sabbath…

Gay Suicide and the Ethic of Love: A Progressive Christian Response

By Eric Reitan

…te became an occasion for those with the most hateful views to be handed a microphone and afforded the chance to tell the community just how sick, sinful, perverted, and disgusting their gay and lesbian neighbors are. According to the Tulsa World report, Harrington’s father “said he feels his son may have glimpsed a hard reality at the Sept. 28 council meeting, a place where the same sentiments that quietly tormented him in high school were being…

Missouri Pastor Goes Viral on Gawker: ‘Separation of Church and Hate’

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…ly taking place in our city about the ordinance. I saw an article from the Miami Herald that helped jump start the process, and soon thereafter I came across a sermon preached by Bob Jones on Easter Sunday in 1960, in which he (as I understand it) was partly responding to Billy Graham’s move toward advocating for social reforms in the South. I did a bunch of Google searches related to strings like “sermons on segregation” or “sermons supporting ra…

Ricky Gervais: Why I’m an Atheist

By Lauri Lebo

…ou need to know to keep on reading? I’d cheerfully watch that man read the phone book. So, when my buddy Rev. El Mundo sent me the link to the comedian’s message, I eagerly clicked on it. I was surprised when I saw this wasn’t a clip of his latest hysterical stand up, but an essay he penned for the Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog. The topic of his essay was how he came to be an atheist. The whole piece is here. While there is humor in the pie…

A Valentine for the World…and for the Church I Left

By Carolyn S. Briggs

…ur careers and families and our worldviews and providing each other with family when our families of origin often fell far short. One night, a lovely man hugged me and my then husband good night: “You are our safe harbor,” he said. As we drove home that night, I mulled those words. I wasn’t sitting in a beat-up car at a stoplight in South Des Moines, I was a sanctuary, a light in the window, a refuge for all who sojourned in God. I mattered. That’…

Why is Liberty Institute Still Defending Phillip Monk?

By Rob Shryock

…cult to understand, and even if proven, wouldn’t necessarily show that the military’s (mis)treatment of Christians is systemic or systematic. Why not pick a case that’s a little more clear-cut? Just days after the Air Force’s report was released, Monk openly appeared (in possible violation of military code) at the Values Voters Summit for a panel. The Liberty Institute’s Jeff Mateer put his hand on Monk’s shoulder and praised him, saying, “We’ve g…

Facebook, Twitter, and the Death of Body Language

By Anthony B. Pinn

…I’m not trading in my TREO, and I’m not canceling the media package on my phone or reducing the number of messages I sent through that magical device. I am not calling for a technology purge. I’m simply noting that technology comes with a price, and this price has something of a postmodern twist. By this I mean that tweeting and other high-tech modalities of exchange send information about happenings, attitudes, feelings, and events—but in a way…

Obama’s Muslim Strategy 2.0

By Haroon Moghul

…Muslim-majority world, Obama’s choice is to strengthen the OIC. For Muslim-minority communities, Obama’s administration has empowered network-building from multiple angles, attempting to link like-minded Muslims to create attachments that can defeat and dismantle radical networks. Make Muslims fight Muslims: It sounds either admirably sophisticated or worryingly imperialist. How Muslims, as participants and spectators, perceive the strategy is und…

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

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…ever heard of the virgin birth, and John, who clearly had heard of it but omits it. That’s just biblical knowledge most people don’t have. I wrote a book once about reclaiming the Bible for a nonreligious world. I really want to take it back from those people who I think are ruining it. I don’t dislike those people. My mother was a fundamentalist. She had not finished the 9th grade. She knew no other way to approach the biblical story. But, for th…