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Religion, Morality, and the Death of the American Soap Opera

By Katy E. Shrout

…from early on the soap had a frivolous, ridiculous aesthetic reputation at best, and was considered an outright poisonous influence at worst. During the Second World War, at least one psychiatrist worried that radio soaps were undermining the war morale, distracting women with addictive stories that promoted destructive values. To label something a “soap opera” today still implies that what you are describing involves immature behavior, improbable…

Confronting the Rise in Conspiracy Thinking … With Wisdom Literature

By Daniel Schultz

…use, last, not everything is under our control. Walter Brueggemann says it best: “In spite of our best planning, there is an inscrutable mystery about our experience which we cannot master or manipulate.” That includes the mystery of suffering, as Job discovered. Adherents of conspiracy theories and other kinds of foolishness often ascribe far too much power and control to the leading figures of their narratives. It’s a primitive way of thinking:…

What Fundamentalist Christian Fiction Can Teach Us About Our American Crisis

By Christopher Douglas

…eed to the literary arm of this new social movement: The [New York] Times ‘best-seller’ list was misleading. Evangelical books were often outselling the Times’ best-sellers. But the paper did not bother to count sales in religious bookstores. The people hurt most weren’t evangelical authors (our books sold anyway); rather, the losers were Democratic Party leaders and other liberal readers of the ‘paper of record’ who were blindsided by subsequent…

Forget the Pope—We Need a New Caliph!

By Haroon Moghul

…an make Turkey a truly multicultural democracy, he’ll have resurrected the best characteristics of the Ottoman Empire, which last held the Caliphate, conveniently enough in modern Turkey. The Bad: Erdogan may actually already be the Caliph, which kind of ruins our brackets. Also, his peace with the Kurds might help Erdogan stick in office yet longer, which is kind of like eating Turkish Delight every day. Plus, since the Ottomans were technically…

Impossible Possibilities: Obama and Power

By Jonathan L. Walton

…all sadness and sympathy for the president-elect’s soul, that despite his best intentions, he must assume the controls of an American neoliberal empire that is inextricably tied to the reinscription of social injustice. Don’t get it twisted. Neither President Obama’s multiethnic background, beautiful black family, or the current economic crisis will fundamentally change the principles of free markets, free trade, or transnational corporate domina…

Evolution Challenged in ‘Textbook’ Case: As Goes Texas, So Goes the Nation

By Lauri Lebo

…Now he says he’s merely interested in making sure students are taught the best science standards from the best science textbooks. After the “strength and weakness” wording was rejected, McLeroy launched into an impassioned speech during the recent hearings about the fossil record. He spoke of the “sudden appearance” of life forms during the 70- to 80-million-year-period known as the Cambrian Explosion and evolutionary stasis, in which life forms…

With Release of Pentagon Report, UFO Narrative Belief System is Suddenly Supported by Military Witness Testimonies

By Diana Pasulka

…technologically advanced and are often thought to be supportive of humans’ best interests. Harvard researcher Dr. John Mack’s bestselling book Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens (1994) featured the testimonies of people whose encounters with alleged extraterrestrials are best characterized as beneficial and spiritual, if frightening. Current UAP military narratives counter the testimonies found in books like Mack’s. They’re replaced with the…

Want to Save Marriage? Ban Divorce

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…anta. Certainly, divorce is a necessary option for couples. Often it’s the best thing for a couple trapped in a loveless or abusive relationship. People change, circumstances change, and often it’s best for two people to part ways. Even religious institutions, over the years, have come to understand this and don’t tend to vigorously condemn people for the decision. Many churches, in fact, have divorce care groups and other activities specifically…

Milk: Hollywood Does Gay History

By Matthew Silverstein

Milk goes into the Oscars with eight nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor, for Sean Penn. Aside from 2005’s Brokeback Mountain this is one of the only recent big-budget films to deal sympathetically with the lives of gay people. The movie is framed by a spoken narrative that Harvey Milk recorded “only to be played if I am assassinated.” But the dramatic tension in the film doesn’t depend on the anticipation of Milk’s…

Meet The Liberal Tea Partiers

By Abby Scher

…tax, just something that makes it simpler on families,” he said. “Money is best in the hands of families, and they know how best to spend it on for their children.” “Helping out the poor, that’s certainly something that the Bible tells you to do, but it doesn’t tell you to turn to the tax collectors to help the poor. It’s more to turn to yourselves to help the poor… We don’t believe it’s the role of the federal government to find an answer, a one-…