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Too Hot for Shul: Rabbis Seek Healthy Israel Dialogue After Gaza

…these conversations,” said Stutman, “and I still think synagogues are the best place for them.” Co-sponsored by J Street, the school’s J Street U chapter, and the New Israel Fund, the event was titled “Test of the Crisis in Gaza: Who We Are and What’s Next?,” an acknowledgement of the unprecedented polarization of American Jews produced by this summer’s war in Gaza. Stutman is, along with over 840 other rabbis and cantors, a member of the Rabbini…

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No, Sunni and Shia Muslims Have Not Been Fighting Forever

…art of a common Muslim world, and a shared peoplehood, which is apparently best expressed by suffocating any expression of dissent, going to war with one’s co-religionists, and demonizing opponents. If not brutally murdering them. If ever there were a need for some kind of secularizing sentiment, it would be here. But let’s also not forget that secularism emerged in religious communities—to prevent them from tearing themselves apart—and as such wa…

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Is Obama the Antichrist? Why Armageddon Stands Between the President and the Evangelical Vote

…in the runaway success of Hal Lindsey’s The Late, Great Planet Earth, the best-selling nonfiction book of the 1970s. At the same time evangelicals, although scorning Hollywood, turned to modern technology to preach Armageddon. The result was the cult phenomenon A Thief in the Night, an Armageddon-themed film that popularized one of the first pop Christian hits, Larry Norman’s “I Wish We’d All Been Ready.” The movie scared countless teenagers (and…

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DeSantis is a No-Show, the Right’s ‘Secret Sauce,’ and Final Thoughts on Pray Vote Stand

…n his words, “Some of us believe we belong to the Creator who knows what’s best for us; others believe they belong to themselves and knows what’s best for them.” Any political belief that seems to be inspired by a Godless worldview, then, is automatically false. Backholm’s presentation loudly echoes Barna’s morning presentation and underlines a theme from the conference. The “biblical worldview” framework offers an opportunity to both inoculate ev…

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Take It Off, Or We’ll Make You: On Sarkozy’s Proposed Burqa Ban

…you. Since you have not been out in the world long enough to know what is best for you, we are going to spell out for you what is in your own best interest. First, you need to stop obeying men. Those men. Fathers, brothers, husbands, uncles, burly sons, imams, mullahs. You need to have a mind of your own. We understand that the peculiarly Muslim pathology is hard to overcome, but we urge you to struggle. Be bold. Make your own decisions. How do y…

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Do Atheists Borrow Religion’s Morality?

…ishment” is engaged in a conspiracy. The parents have a point… [W]e do our best to convince these students of the benefits of secularization. We assign first-person accounts of growing up homosexual to our homophobic students for the same reasons that German schoolteachers in the postwar period assigned The Diary of Anne Frank… So we are going to go right on trying to discredit you in the eyes of your children, trying to strip your fundamentalist…

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Teaching the Dalai Lama’s Monks: Better Religion Through Science

“Do bacteria require light?” Tashi, one of my best students, wants to know. He sits there in Dharamsala, India, like his Buddhist monk colleagues, cross-legged on the floor in maroon robes, six hours a day learning science from a tall white Jewish guy from North Carolina. Religion often has a hard time of it, especially among academics, and especially among scientists. Of course academics have no problem studying religion and raising big money to…

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What Do Christians Think About the Netanyahu Speech?

…oycott its leader — they are no friends of Israel, and we pledge to do our best to educate voters about their undermining of Israel and the U.S.-Israel relationship at this crucial hour. Today, in an email to supporters, CUFI is urging voters to call their representatives and demand that they attend the speech. “Attending this speech is not merely an opportunity for our representatives;” the email reads, “it is their responsibility.” On the other…

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On Religion, Abortion, and Politics: Dr. George Tiller’s Christian Ethics

…an beings are completely free to use their rational capacity to decide how best to live within the world. That is why their vocation in the world is so important. But as Lutherans engage in their vocation in the world, they are not promised to be able to know any better than non-Christians what is right or wrong, good or bad. This is why Lutherans cannot, on the basis of any secret or specialized revelation, seek to tell the world how to run its b…

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Evangelical Stephen Baldwin’s Imitatio Christi & “Reality” TV

…isms—they dumb us down, they elevate public humiliation—but what I’m really interested in is the way shows like Spike’s Joe Schmo Show or VH1’s I Love Money turn into morality plays about the value of friendship and loyalty. In the best reality shows, the initial rush of schadenfreude is gradually replaced with a genuine affection for the “good guys,” and righteous frustration at the machinations of the villains. I’m also fascinated by the villain…

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