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Everything Was Better When We Had God In Our Schools

…ublic schools for good, our schools must have been idyllic places, largely free from the type and extent of violence we see today. Sure, there were the occasional schoolyard fights, but those are a far cry from the premeditated, high-fatality attacks that are seemingly becoming all too common these days. God was allowed in our schools, and the safety of our kids was proof of God’s favor. The problem is that gun violence has been a feature of schoo…

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Republican Lauren Boebert Jokes About AR-15s and Jesus — And Yes, She’s a ‘Real’ Christian

…hrist.” She goes on, “We came to Jesus, because we were bound, we were not free. But Jesus paid the ultimate price to set us free for all of eternity.” No, there’s simply no tenable case to be made that Boebert is not a “real” Christian. She is very much a Christian. She is also a terrible person. And if we can’t get it through our heads that it is very possible to be both of those things at the same time, we will never effectively counter the cor…

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Hell 101: A Back-to-School Reflection on the Persistence of Belief in Eternal Punishment

…h or equality of outcome is not a popular political position. There are no free rides, and that entails that some—perhaps most—are going to lose. It’s really the same logic that my students advocated for against the tendency towards universalism in Origen of Alexandria and Gregory of Nyssa. I would suggest the reason they had so much trouble with the prospect of universal salvation had more to do with cultural assumptions rather than religious one…

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Why are Nuns and Monks in the Streets? (Parts I & II)

…identity. Tibetan monks believe that they must have internal autonomy: the freedom to establish their own policies, to manage their own affairs, and not to be subject to ideological pressures or other forms of interference from the state. In Tibet today it is precisely the issue of autonomy—the freedom to opt for a Buddhist way of life and to establish such a way of life institutionally—that is the greatest source of conflict between the clergy an…

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Is it Okay to Celebrate the Death of Rush Limbaugh — or Should We Let the Dead Judge the Dead?

…, is more than a little too rich. Which does not mean that Limbaugh gets a free pass. The Christian injunction against judgment gives no exemption from being held accountable for one’s misdeeds, even in death. Christians hold back on judging others because we are taught that all—all—have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. You and I might be able to stand taller before God than Rush Limbaugh, but so can an ant over an aphid when viewed fr…

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Hagee and McCain Part Ways

…ed States. But we might remind our European friends that a political arena free from religious concerns is the exception to the global rule. Even among their own “I” nations, while Iceland’s politics may maintain a secular purity, Ireland and Italy are decidedly more complicated cases. Which is all prelude to reflecting on this electoral season’s “pastor wars,” now mercifully in abeyance, but liable to heat up again at any time. Linking one’s poli…

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David Brat: Catholic, Calvinist, and Libertarian, Oh My!

…this called this “theocratic libertarianism”: it creates an economic zone free of government regulation, but it does not create a zone free of the regulations of religion. This is the model in which care for the poor is the responsibility of the family and the church and any government safety net is labelled “socialism.” It is the model in which education is the sole responsibility of families, leading to the goal of eliminating public education…

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RDBook: Whither the Religious Left?

…acknowledges climate change, for example, but he is a fierce proponent of free markets—and so ideologically rigid that it is difficult to imagine him getting behind the kinds of solutions that could address what needs to be done. Similarly, he is so fiercely antigay, and supports African political and religious leaders who advocate criminalization of homosexuality, that it is difficult to imagine that the HIV/AIDS work for which he receives such…

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Synod ‘Fight for Soul’ of Catholic Church, Flap On English Translation of Key Report; Anti-Gay Law Advances in Kyrgyzstan; Global LGBT Recap

…sh anti-gay law that would criminalizeeven the dissemination of ideas that promote LGBT equality. Radio Free Europe reports: Kyrgyzstan’s parliament has approved a draft law that bans “propaganda of same-sex relations” in the first reading. Lawmaker Kurmanbek Dyikanbaev told RFE/RL on October 15 that 79 deputies voted for the legislation, while seven voted against it. The law has to pass the parliament’s approval in two more readings and then be s…

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Pariah or Charmed Hero: America’s Obsession with Jews and Israel

…e immensely popular Left Behind series by Timothy LeHay and Jerry Jenkins. Freedman argues that while the Left Behind series is ostensibly philo-Semitic (citing Melanie McAlister, Freedman calls it a kind of “Christian Zionism”) it retains old Christian anti-Semitic structures that are simply turned toward a new enemy (some of whom remain Jews). He writes: But this is not to say the text is free of anti-Semitic topoi [conventional themes]; indeed…

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