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Liberals Enabled Bishops in Contraception Battle

…th states held that there was no violation of the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion. That’s because the law doesn’t “substantially burden” anyone’s religious practice and is one of general applicability that was not targeted at infringing a particular religious practice.  To permit religious beliefs to “excuse compliance with otherwise valid laws regulating matters the state is free to regulate,” would, the California Supreme Cour…

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Bishops Have No Religious Freedom Claim

…— free exercise of religion, that in order for a law to violate somebody’s free exercise, it has to impinge — substantially burden — their religious practice. And there is no substantial burden on Catholics’ religious practice by providing coverage — insurance coverage for contraception for other people. No one is making Catholics who do not want contraception to take it. No one is making the bishops take it, and so it’s not really a First Amendme…

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Is Pope Francis Yogaphobic?

…lity courses, yoga courses, or zen courses, but none of those things would free the person to be like a child of God. Only the Holy Spirit, according to Francis, has the power to break the hardness of the heart and make it docile toward God and free to love. Given the frequent Catholic and evangelical yogaphobic moments in recent history, I asked myself if the Pope’s remarks were yogaphobic, but I concluded that yogaphobia did not appear to be at…

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Shutdown is Over, But There Will Be a Next Time

…an dismantling Roosevelt’s legacy and successive presidents followed suit. Free markets boomed, social nets frayed and paeans flowed to America’s religious liberties. For many who opposed the New Deal and now stand arrayed against Obamacare, the message is the same: Jesus is the root of American democracy and capitalism. Christianity bestows freedom from big government, market regulations and sin. The message may be exploited for political or econ…

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The ‘Dreher Affair’ Highlights the Right’s International Networks

…ed by televangelist Pat Robertson. The Anti-LGBTQ group Alliance Defending Freedom has set up shop outside the US as well, dubbing its coordinating international body Alliance Defending Freedom International. The Polish Ordo Iuris, a right-wing catholic organization which leads a crusade against abortion, is likewise well connected on an international level with German pundit Birgit Kelle, a regular on the anti-abortion circuit, having recently sp…

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RDPulpit: Obama Missed the Hope in State of the Union Address

…on faith have been desperate to suppress this insight for decades. God is free, and in that freedom, for the poor. That there is the possibility of change, that the bubble has burst and the financial certainties are on the brink of collapse, that the numbness and despair have been pierced—all of this should be evidence for the faithful that God is “operating under a new plan.”  This is not the hope Joe Hill famously derided as “pie in the sky, by…

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Is New Park51 Advisor Any Better Than Feisal Abdul-Rauf?

…d be jailed. A HuffPo news item gives more detail, saying that a person is free to leave Islam without harassment, and should only be jailed if they preach to others that they should leave Islam. (I am relying on second-hand reports as Adhami has numerous lectures and there is no direct link to what the reporters are referring to). For a traditionalist scholar like Adhami, this statement is fairly important. He is moving the question of apostasy f…

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Will a New Dawkins Foundation-Sponsored App Help Atheists Talk to Believers?

…-escalation are all admirable, but as noted earlier the tone is not always free of condescension. Writing realistic dialogue for hypothetical conversations is a very particular skill, and several of the scenarios reflect a deep disdain for believers. At times, the app casts believers as belligerent doofuses: …or violent bullies: Another scenario assumes that you might be tempted to lecture an intoxicated panhandler about epistemology and divine ex…

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Neither Christ Nor Antichrist: A Reflection on the Election of Barack Obama

…for blacks). Let’s ignore for a moment that the Emancipation Proclamation freed very few slaves. Let’s ignore Harry Stout’s argument in Upon the Altar of the Nation that the proclamation provided a moral rationale for immoral total war. Let’s look forward thirty-five years from 1865 and be struck with a sobering thought. Within one generation, hope had turned to despair. Since the 1950s, African American scholars have referred to the 1890s and ea…

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

…tive legal and religious groups that the agency is attempt to stifle their free speech. Through efforts such as Pulpit Freedom Sunday, pastors openly flout the law. Enforcement of the rule, and the revocation of a participating church’s tax-exempt status, though, could trigger a constitutional challenge to it. The rule against politicking, though, isn’t aimed at suppressing free speech but at ensuring that taxpayers don’t subsidize political activ…

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