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Kentucky-Fried Christianity: Governor Matt Bevin Wants to Pray Away Violence in Louisville

…of free choice—a conception of the Christian soul that fits with the wider American notion of the citizen as consumer, as Sean McCloud has detailed in his fascinating American Possessions. Bevin’s views are shaped by and shape a particular social position—bluntly, he can believe what he believes more easily because he’s a wealthy white male. If the drama over the prayer proposal reveals major divides within American Christianity, calling attention…

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#TakeAKnee: Race and Religious Violence at the Heart of Trump Attacks on Kaepernick/NFL

…heologian Jon Pahl argued in Empire of Sacrifice: The Religious Origins of American Violence that American history and society is marked by especially high degrees of both religion and violence. He finds “identifiably religious” patterns in this violence, particularly “systematic exclusions, prejudices, or biases—that is, ritualized incantations or performances—that substitute violence against scapegoats or victims for actual solutions to social p…

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Elizabeth Warren,  American Evangelist

…o remember that evangelism and evangelical zeal aren’t always a bad thing. American Evangelical Christians call themselves that because they are committed to spreading the Good News—the Gospel—euangelion in New Testament Greek. American Evangelical Christianity is a religious phenomenon. But small-e evangelism is more of an unconfined quiddity, a way of operating or performing in public that “works” in a cultural way among Americans who aren’t esp…

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American Christianity Is Changing Fast: Five Stories to Watch in 2016

…as religious leaders, is the so-called “Rise of the Religious Nones.” The number of dropouts/defectors from church involvement has risen significantly over the last several years, such that about 23 percent of the American population now claims no religious affiliation. They leave for many reasons, ranging from a general disillusionment with large-scale institutions in general to the politicization of religion and religious scandals—whether finan…

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How America’s Charismatic Christianity Helped Fuel the Fantasyland Presidency of Donald Trump

…er people. At various points, you cite an anti-establishment streak in the American temperament. Would you say that Americans are generally too quick to disbelieve official accounts and too quick to believe alternative theories? Yes, I think that is precisely correct, and I think it is in large measure a result of the nation having been born of the Enlightenment and of fervent Christianity. These are flipsides, too. This extreme credulity and extr…

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The Unbearable Whiteness of American Lent

…iritual and cultural celebration. It also doesn’t help that the origins of American Catholicism, like any other mostly white denomination, is stained by its racist past. The earliest American bishops defended slavery and even urged the Vatican to recognize the Confederacy; and for a long time, African Americans were rejected by most seminaries and convents. Roman Catholicism has attempted to course-correct since then—a friend once referred to Pope…

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Religion of Fear: The Politics of Horror in Conservative Evangelicalism

…tudies. I also kept in mind not only a broader academic audience—including American studies, political theory, cultural studies, and American history, for example—but a general reading public and students as well. The book is still, in its tone and in its aims, emphatically an academic monograph, but I hope that the writing is accessible enough to appeal to readers generally interested in the subject. Are you hoping to just inform readers? Give th…

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How Breivik’s “Cultural Analysis” is Drawn from the “Christian Worldview”

…s Fox Piven, Bill Ayers and others in a complex diabolical plot to subvert American capitalism. Bowers’ film shows handwritten charts, which endeavor to demonstrate that Gramsci, who died in 1937, has played a crucial role in the trajectory of the American left, leading to the election of Barack Obama. As Fischer, who nonetheless relies on the same demonizing, scapegoating ideology, protests, Breivik doesn’t share his view of Christianity or his s…

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Inside Outsourced: Come See Where Your Jobs Went

…ere it’s set.  In the last few years, South Asians—often touted as a model American minority, like Asian Americans more generally—have featured much more frequently on television, giving some networks the look of college campuses. There’s Aziz Ansari (Parks and Recreation), Aasif Mandvi (The Daily Show with Jon Stewart), Danny Pudi (Community) and now a whole show about ethnically ambiguous brown people who are not Latino. As if Nikki Haley’s hybr…

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