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Megachurch Pastor: We’re “American Al Qaeda” for Opposing Homosexuality

…time in our conversation, Chandler lowered his booming voice. The gays are best discussed in hushed tones. Like Chandler, Giglio said homosexuality was not a focus of his ministry. But notice what he didn’t say. He didn’t say that his views had evolved since the 1990s. He didn’t say that he no longer thought gays and lesbians were hell-bound. He didn’t say that the dreaded homosexual agenda had ceased to be a threat to these great United States. H…

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Run Hajar Run

…preparation for the rigors of the hajj rituals. I’m still researching the best program for me, but it’s been a week with no sugary sweets and no white flour. I’m still working my way to having six small meals a day, right now I’m at about five. I also included two brisk half-hour walks each day, when I can make them. The morning walk is less of a challenge, even when I have my grandson. In fact, especially when I have my grandson, because I push…

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Jesus Said Punch Up, Not Down: Why William Barber’s Attack on the Religious Right May Not Be What It Seems

…ith—that government programs are an ineffective means of poverty relief at best, and at worst, a counter-productive or even predatory response to the poor. When I say “an article of faith” here, I am not being critical: there are many American Christians who believe that taxes are theft, government hurts more than it helps, and that the right way to address poverty is through religious charity only, not public policy. People like Rev. Barber and I…

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Reza Aslan’s Viral Fox News Interview Reveals More Than Just Christian Privilege

…ons about Jesus.  A classy, statesman-like takedown of an ethnocentrist at best (a bigot at worst) always sits better with the agreeable audience. The interview also exposed a double-standard—Green interviewed Christian professor Barry Vann about his book, Puritan Islam, without a hint of incredulity. This kind of inconsistency gets “The Daily Show” writers furiously typing. Those on Green’s side could gain satisfaction in the holes poked in Aslan…

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A far-right protestor wears a MAGA tophat with a grim expression.

Conservative Evangelicals Aren’t Hypocrites, They’re Sadists

…h a rabid culture warrior like Mike Pence in the #2 role. But probably the best evidence for somebody like this would be the ICE raids in Mississippi last week. Here’s Trump the authoritarian carrying out his promise to keep them safe—and the result is a terrorized, deflated community. People notice that kind of thing, especially when their church is called on to assist the victims. And it may never work! All the evidence indicates that there’s a…

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Catholic Healthcare Is Not the Enemy

…re or that no Catholic hospital ever denies treatment in pregnancy that is best for a woman. Nor am I suggesting that the Catholic bishops are the only adversaries to worry about. I am, for example, offended by the CHA’s claim that it needs to be exempt from the contraceptive mandate and cannot provide insurance coverage. I’m offended because Catholic hospitals can and have provided such insurance to employees before. But I refuse to accept that C…

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First Congregational UCC, Ripon Wisconsin

Cheese State Reality Check: On The Wisconsin Idea and the Social Gospel

…on works in Bascom Hall, and the Bascom dairy on campus sells probably the best ice cream in the state. Likewise Charles Van Hise, the long-serving president of the UW is remembered with a hall where generations of students have studied foreign languages. People outside of Badgerland might be more familiar with Robert “Fighting Bob” LaFollette, founder of the Progressive Party in the early 20th century, and still today an inspiration to lefties. E…

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Václav Havel: Democracy as Spiritual Discipline

…icians have a moral obligation to call their followers to be true to their best selves rather than pander to or inflame their followers’ worst instincts: Time and time again I have been persuaded that a huge potential of goodwill is slumbering within our society. It’s just that it’s incoherent, suppressed, confused, crippled and perplexed — as though it does not know what to rely on, where to begin, where or how to find meaningful outlets.  In suc…

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Secularism in the US is Larger, More Diverse and More Dynamic Than Ever, But You Wouldn’t Know it From the Media

…lways go back to the same people, but this does a tremendous disservice to promoting understanding of this community as it exists today.” As Fish sees it, journalists “don’t quite know how to talk about this elephant in the room: the fact that almost a third of Americans are no longer part of an organized religious tradition,” and no legacy media outlet does a particularly good job. To speak of this significant percentage of the population as mere…

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Barack Obama: High Priest-in-Chief?

…American influence in the Middle East has been (and likely remains) in the best interests of the United States, certainly of Israel, and perhaps of the rest of the world. Bin Laden, however, disagrees. Vehemently. Violently. Nevertheless, this does not make the war—formally known as “on terror”—a religious conflict. To say that it is echoes the kinds of over-simplified religious ignorance we came to expect from the bumbling previous administration…

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