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

By Joseph Laycock

…tel room to perform a death ritual so that they could travel to “another galaxy.” “Joy of Satan” promotes “theistic Satanism” and is an extremely fringe group even among Satanic organizations. Its website is rife with comments that are openly anti-Semitic and anti-Christian—but it does not advocate murder. One essay explains that Satanism “is not about human sacrifice,” and another insists that, “Satan never murdered anyone.” An essay on the after…

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

By Peter Laarman

…enders called such borrowers just a couple of years ago. They loved making phone calls that even their supremely unqualified mortgage applicants found somewhat hard to believe: “Congratulations: your loan has been approved! You will close in 15 minutes. And lucky you: there’s no need to show up or even supply a check. Everything is rolled right into the loan. Woo-hoo!” Yeah, we all went for it. We were approved so easily. Who doesn’t what to be “a…

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

By Eric Reitan

…fight. If someone had pressed into his fingers at that pivotal moment the phone number for The Trevor Project, he might reach out and hear a voice of reassurance, a voice that gave him hope for life by, in part, repudiating the so-called biblical teaching that who he is amounts to an offense against God. If he’d had a sense of belonging to a community that embraced him for who he is, maybe his hope wouldn’t be so fully shattered. But while other…

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

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…e same way it does regarding slavery, or viewing women as property, or any number of things that our culture no longer affirms or accepts. My perspective can best be summarized in a quote from my theological hero, John Caputo: “My own view is that the outcome of a careful debate about these matters would be to show that there simply are no arguments to show that homosexual love is of itself anything else than love, and that therefore, since the es…

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

…ituated somewhere on either side with my feet up. Resting, not striving. Relaxing, not watching for a sign 24/7. It’s exhausting. Enough of my whining. Let’s be real, my ex-brethren. Why should you go chasing after me? I’m the one who left and would go on to write a memoir and a screenplay in which the character based on me is the winsome, adorable star while the characters based on you are crazy-zealous and sometimes close-minded and self-satisfi…

Why is Liberty Institute Still Defending Phillip Monk?

By Rob Shryock

…eer put his hand on Monk’s shoulder and praised him, saying, “We’ve gotten phone calls from military members who are undergoing discrimination…and with the exception of him, those folks that have called us have all wanted to remain anonymous. Sergeant Monk, to his credit, is willing to stand up.” Let’s read between the lines here: Monk is, quite literally, the best example of discrimination against Christians in the military that the Liberty Inst…

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…

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.”…

Can You Make a Comedy About UFO Cult Mass Suicide?

By Joseph Laycock

…fined as a vagrant. So members always carried five dollars and money for a phone call. Benjamin Zeller, author of Heaven’s Gate: America’s UFO Religion, has also noted that Heaven’s Gate members engaged in a lot of self-deprecating humor because they were aware that mainstream society perceived them as crazy. This research led Jones to conclude that a comedy about Heaven’s Gate might not be as inappropriate as it sounds. “I could never make a come…