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A Valentine for the World…and for the Church I Left

By Carolyn S. Briggs

…acist or a sexist demanding voice. I see that all the time, and it’s so unfair. You must admit this, my former friends, it is more pleasant to have answered questions rather than to be saddled with ambiguity. There is great joy in surrender, genuine bliss to never be overwhelmed with mystery and uncertainty. God said it, I believe it, and that settles it. Living like that—one can beam in the face of Katrina, the amputation, the schoolbus of baseba…

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…

Why Crux‘s Knights of Columbus “Partnership” is Problematic

By Kaya Oakes

…itled “We shall not look upon the likes of Mother Angelica again.” It’s a fairly balanced account of her life, but it also reiterates Mother Angelica’s scrappy insistence on orthodoxy as a model for women “wielding real power inside an organization often perceived as a boys’ club.” News about the recent bombing in Pakistan is focused on “anti-Christian hate,” several headlines about Pope Francis focus on his Easter message, and in the latest insta…

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…

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…

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

By Joseph Laycock

…re attempting to kill herself. Christensen claimed she was responding to a phone call from her husband, a pastor, who announced that the world was ending and to get the family ready. Cases such as this raise questions that have long gone unanswered about how the state should define “religion.” By what criteria should we decide whether deviant beliefs and actions are an expression of religion or evidence of a medical problem? Dr. Kolchak points out…

Lessons Learned this Ramadan

By Amina Wadud

…for even the prescribed worship might change. There were more people in chairs for prayer than I remember in the past, and I had to take one myself for one of the tarawih. I finally finished the Qur’an reading I had started last year and decided that now I’m at the point where it will take two years to read through. To be merciful with our aging is like Allah’s mercy with those parents: it’s a part of the Divine nature and I am grateful. Finally,…

‘The Quiet Damage’ Details the Heartbreaking Effect of QAnon on Five American Families — But Critical Questions Linger

By Susannah Crockford

…f this book. It’s based on “hundreds of hours” of interviews in person, by phone, and online over three years. The pacing is fine, and by chapter 10 it becomes truly heartbreaking. Reading about people ruining their lives and the lives of their loved ones, over and again, is not a light read. In that sense it resembles an addiction memoir. This resemblance is made explicit in the afterword in which Cook argues that underneath the disinformation cr…

Dear Scientists: Please Stop Bashing Free Will!

By John Horgan

…athematics exam. Others were less likely to let a classmate use their cell phone. “Some philosophical analyses may conclude that a fatalistic determinism is compatible with highly ethical behavior,” the psychologist Jesse Bering comments in an article on these studies, “but the present results suggest that many laypersons do not yet appreciate that possibility.” Theologians have proposed that science still allows faith in a “God of the gaps,” who…

Thomas Jefferson’s Bible Rejected the Supernatural Jesus in Response to the ‘Stupidity’ of Those Who Deified Him

By Gordon Haber

…Museum of American History as well as a prolific writer who has written a number of pieces for RD. Gordon Haber spoke to Manseau by phone. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Tell us about the Jefferson Bible. What is it? Why did he do it? Jefferson wanted to distill the Gospels down to core teachings of Jesus as a moral teacher. So he went through copies of the Bible and cut out with a penknife everything that had to do with J…