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Does Violence Always Win?: Learning From René Girard (1923-2015)

By Martha J. Reineke

…im as the passive instrument of its own transformation. Law also marks the site of sacrifice. Other markers typically are suppressed; thus, the only remaining testimony to culture-creating violence is contamination and pollution that seep out of the Law. For over three decades, scholars of religion have drawn on Girard to inform their work. Christian theologians and New Testament scholars have found Girard’s insights on the scapegoat mechanism of…

Jose Antonio Vargas’ Coming Out and the Power of Stories over Religious Remonstrances

By Sarah Posner

…derating, interjected, “White people have to talk to white people about white privilege.” More stories. Vargas told his today and launched his new site Define American. With his example, there will be more stories….

Orthodox TV Channel Offers Gays One-Way Ticket Out of Russia; And More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…anzania: Government threatens LGBT activists and NGO supporters Government officials have “threatened to arrest and expel activists, as well as deregister all non-governmental organisations that campaign for gay rights,” reports Reuters. Singapore: Pink Dot rally succeeds without banned participation and funding from foreigners Thousands attended the July 1 Pink Dot rally – the local version of LGBT Pride – even though government officials had ban…

Can Atheists Simply Ignore Theology?

By Eric Reitan

…not read the detailed discourses of Count Roderigo of Seville on the exquisite and exotic leathers of the Emperor’s boots, nor does he give a moment’s consideration to Bellini’s masterwork, On the Luminescence of the Emperor’s Feathered Hat. We have entire schools dedicated to writing learned treatises on the beauty of the Emperor’s raiment, and every major newspaper runs a section dedicated to imperial fashion… Dawkins arrogantly ignores all the…

An Architect Reimagines the Synagogue as Ark, Shelter, Floating Fortress

By Kathryn Joyce

…l), where services are held before an audience of refugees living in an on-site block of temporary housing apartments. “Since Dalet means door, among other things, I started thinking about Lazarus, and ‘I lift my light besides a golden door,’ and refugees in relation to the people who go to pray on a nice Saturday or Sunday. [For them] everything is lovely, and they have their children and grandchildren coming over later, and they feel like all is…

Will Religion Solve the Obesity Crisis?

By Andrew Aghapour

…no surprise that religion has entered the national dialogue as a possible site for fighting the obesity epidemic. What may surprise you is where we’re looking: the Book of Daniel and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. The Book of Daniel is the inspiration for Purpose Driven Life author Rick Warren’s new initiative. Warren claims to have been inspired by Daniel, who refused rich foods of the royal court in order to serve God more fully. Warren s…

Sex and the Chosen People: Be Fruitful and Multiply, Etc.

By Mandy Van Deven

…n traditional/Orthodox Judaism (and reviled by many Jewish feminists) is a site of profound, unarticulated homoeroticism. Laura Levitt makes a Jewish case against marriage, and possibly monogamy. Jay Michaelson suggests that queerness should implicate everyone’s theology, and Elliot Kukla looks at the ways in which classical rabbinic literature was surprisingly encouraging of intersex love relationships. There’s definitely plenty that, I hope, wil…

Cornel West: Do Not “Santa-Clausify” MLK Jr.

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…s there, at that same pulpit (actually across the street from the original site of the Ebenezer Baptist Church) that Cornel West offered up his rousing sermon in honor of the King National Holiday. West accomplished three things, any one of which would be worthy of accolade, but taken together, they created a daunting shadow of rhetorical magnitude. First and foremost, by reminding us that King was a son, before he was a father, West articulated h…

Evangelicals, Oppose Park51 At Your Own Eschatological Risk

By Stephen V. Anderson

…recent blog post by Chuck Norris on the American Family Association’s Web site summarizes what many evangelical commentators think about the president’s recent foray into all that is Park51. “Obama is not just rebooting America’s image in the Muslim world. He’s deepening and expanding Islamic belief, practice, culture around the world, like a Muslim missionary.” I think not… but if true… it might be exactly what the Creator ordered (cf. The Late,…

Academic Freedom Bills

By Lauri Lebo

…publicists for the Ben Stein movie Expelled, launched a joint-venture Web site that not only promoted “academic freedom” bills, but provided sample wording for writing the legislation. Stein held press conferences and showings of the movie—which tries to make the argument (poorly) that academic freedom is under attack because science professors are being persecuted for believing in intelligent design—in states where the bills had been introduced….