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James Foley Prayed, But He Was Not a Martyr

By Alana Massey

…ect of both personal and corporate prayer. When he speaks to his mother by phone from Libya, she asks if he has felt the prayers coming from his home as well. He tells her that he has felt them and reports, “Maybe it was others’ prayers strengthening me, keeping me afloat.” This is precisely the kind of hope that prayer can inspire that should become central to the understanding of it for those of us who do not engage in prayer. Though the old aph…

Satanic FOIA Reveals Deep Confusion About 1st Amendment

By Joseph Laycock

…The only data concerning what the monument committee thought about the Satanic monument are hinted at in e-mails to and from an executive assistant. In fact, reading through the files, I felt sympathy for this assistant, who dutifully relayed all phone messages from constituents to the legislature. This resulted in e-mails like: [John Doe] at [555-555-5555] from Durant, OK. is opposed to the statue being erected. He will personally come up, rope…

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…

The Environmental Politics of Vodou, New Orleans Style

By Joseph Laycock

…especially, race. This matrix of associations is evident in the example of phone psychics like “Miss Cleo,” who uses an affected Caribbean accent. We also saw it in Pat Robertson’s gaffe following the earthquake that devastated Haiti in 2010, when he claimed that the nation of Haiti had made a pact with the Devil. Glassman conforms to no stereotypes about Vodou. Born in Maine, her parents were of Ukrainian Jewish heritage but were not religious. S…

As Long As There’s Fear, We Aren’t Ready for Atheism: A Conversation with Theologian and Ex-Priest Daniel Maguire

By Alana Massey

…to atheism than its more dismissive predecessors. RD spoke with Maguire by phone about his latest book and the future of belief. What was the impetus for undertaking this after a long career as a priest and theologian who was once a believer? I started out as the absolute true believer. I believed everything the Vatican taught. One of the things that helped me was working in a parish. I started to meet real people and to discover that some of the…

Ralph Reed’s Group Goes after “Union Thugs” in Wisconsin

By Sarah Posner

…be canvassing the state, in preparation for “a full-scale get-out-the-vote phone bank operation to make sure every last pro-freedom and pro-family voter goes to vote on behalf of our values.” So far, the right’s anti-union battleground in Wisconsin hasn’t been explicitly framed as a “pro-family” issue, but here’s Marx: Please join Tony Nasvik and join the fight with 100 plus FFC activists who will be going door-to-door encouraging the Badger State…

Electionpocalypse, Part I (Christianity)

By Sarah Posner

…r every single baby legally aborted God will require the blood of the same number of people, which is between 30-50 million Americans!” he writes. (NB: this “pro-life” position bears more of a relationship to a book on numerology than the Book of Numbers.) Anti-marriage equality crusader Bishop Harry Jackson, who is African American, urges readers to vote for Romney “as a statement of Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream.” While King was sitting in the…

Safety Not Guaranteed

By Jeanne Carstensen

…ing up. The narrow stairway of our fifth story walk-up is pitch black. Our phones have no signal, which means no AP alerts, no Facebook, no Twitter—and no way to contact friends and family. Except for the radio, we’re cut off. And so is everyone else in the mass of humanity that lives and works below 39th Street. In the afternoon, after the worst of Sandy has departed for the north, I walk across Avenue B again into the Red zone. Some time during…

Who’s Accusing Who of Mormon-Baiting?

By Joanna Brooks

…t Coke and a dozen pink-frosted sugar cookies that there is no anti-Mormon phonebanking script in use by Catholics for Obama. Anywhere. Is anti-Mormonism real? Yes. But even if one poorly-trained rogue phonebanker veered off script into an anti-Mormon ad lib, it does not make for a concerted anti-Mormon effort. (Leave that to orthographically challenged “Heaven is Easy” ministry in Florida.) May cool heads prevail as the race heats up in its fina…

“Symbolic” Personhood Bill Could Kill

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…o-life, conservative state. Senator Crain’s office did not return repeated phone calls, but according to The Daily Beast, he “said the bill is simply a statement that Oklahoma is ‘pro-life.’” Senate Pro Tem Brian Bingman said much the same thing, according to Reuters, offering that “Oklahoma is a conservative pro-life state—we are proud to stand up for what we know is right.” Well, yes, it feels very good to be proud of things, doesn’t it? Might I…