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How Conservative Christian Women Came to Claim “True” Feminism

By Eric C. Miller

…cal ties at work, I wanted to better understand the dynamics causing large numbers of people to adopt the interests of CWA and other Christian Right groups even when those ideas don’t necessarily have clear factual backing. I felt that a thoroughgoing treatment of how public persuasion and belief formation happens had been mostly ignored in scholarship, as most scholars simply see finite groups with finite beliefs, rather than asking critical ques…

The Case for Treating Near-Death Experiences Like Acid Trips

By Andrew Aghapour

…nre of first-hand accounts of near-death journeys to a supernatural realm. Best-selling books including Proof of Heaven, The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven, and Heaven Is For Real share two elements, which are both captured in this trailer for the 2014 film adaptation of Heaven Is For Real : First, these accounts of near-death experiences emphasize how close the person was to biological death. It was a “miracle” that young Colton even survived, jus…

Our Last “Genius” Stephen Hawking is Gone… Cause for Worry Or Inspiration?

By Ed Simon

…that if the idea of genius evolved to preserve wonder, that we must do our best to develop new constructions and new ideas to best encapsulate wonder in whatever era we are heading into. Perhaps even more importantly, it’s to expand how we envision genius, and to see and recognize it where we find it. For example, the astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson is a welcome figure, not just for his deft explanations of complex phenomena, but because as an…

Ensign’s Sin, Power, and No Consequences

By Sarah Posner

…or his efforts to pay off and arrange a lobbying job for Doug Hampton, his best friend and aide whose wife he’d had an affair with — said “there are consequences to sin.” He’s nonetheless confident that “God has forgiven me, and so has my wife.” The announcement comes as the Senate Ethics Committee ramps up its investigation, even though the Justice Department concluded its probe without pressing charges. Sin: Ensign had an affair with his best fr…

Note to David Brat: Free Markets Are Not Calvinist

By Kate Blanchard

…rnment is the decentralization of authority into the distinct spheres; the best check on the depravity of human beings in the economy is the decentralization of the market created by competition. But this is nothing like John Calvin’s own thinking. Despite his love of freedom, Calvin also had what we might call “Talibanesque” tendencies, since he believed in the sovereignty of God and the total depravity of humankind; humans are so sinful that eve…

Unreleased Religious Freedom Manifesto Isn’t the Culture War Compromise It Hopes to Be

By Frederick Clarkson

…ghter of lambs when the military was in short supply of wool uniforms. The best modern example is laws against racial discrimination: While many people insisted that interracial dating or marriage violated their religion, the Supreme Court, in the 1983 case of Bob Jones University v. United States, rightly refused to grant an exemption to anti-discrimination laws based on religion.” With its claim that the “commitment” of the United States regardi…

Rites, Rituals, and the King

By Amina Wadud

…kah. Each prayer will have from 2-4 rakat. Clearly in sajdah we have the best expression of our status as ‘abd-Allah. But we also stand; in fact, we begin the performance at the stand: the best expression of our status as khalifah of Allah. The bow, or ruku’, after standing, acts to put the whole of the performance in motion, and to point in the direction of that motion, towards God (metaphysically, and the Kaaba in Makkah, physically). The fina…

Single Greatest Idea Ever: On the 150th Anniversary of Darwin’s Origin of Species

By Lauri Lebo

…eternal destiny.” Banana, Proof of God’s Existence Comfort is a man whose best-known evolutionary criticism is the banana (or “the atheist’s nightmare,” as he calls it), which he says proves God’s existence because of its intelligently-designed appearance. In an unintentionally funny video from 2006, he expounds on the brilliant design of the banana, as a most impressed Kirk Cameron looks on. That Comfort is so lacking in imagination that he can’…

Convergence of Far-Right, Anti-Democratic Factions in the Northwest Could Provide a Model for the Rest of the Nation

By Frederick Clarkson and Cloee Cooper

…7-8. The event featured such notable figures as Rev. Scott Lively, perhaps best known as an advocate for the notorious “Kill the Gays” legislation in Uganda, and retired Army Major, Stephen Coughlin, a former high level military intelligence analyst and Fellow at the White House National Security Council. The publications of Coughlin’s think tank, Unconstrained Analytics, argue that Black Lives Matter in conjunction with ISIS, Antifa, Neo-Marxists…

When it Comes to Societal Dominion, the Details Matter: A Reporter’s Guide to the New Apostolic Reformation, Part II

By Frederick Clarkson and André Gagné

…m the well-defined offices of traditional denominations, everything NAR is best understood as a work in progress. Fortunately, NAR founders and current leaders have some working definitions, as they figure out how to seize the 21st Century with their vision of First Century Christianity. Movement founder C. Peter Wagner distinguished between those who possess the gift (mentioned by God in 1 Corinthians 12) and those who hold the office of apostle….