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6 Overlooked Takeaways From a Reviewer of Controversial Texas Textbooks

…o involve religious balance and imbalance in the textbooks themselves. The last item offers some overall lessons. 1. Boosterism of Christianity To be approved for use in Texas public schools, textbooks must satisfy at least half of the Texas curriculum standards—the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, or “TEKS” (often pronounced “teeks”). While the TEKS for middle school and high school world geography do a fair, if minimal, job of presenting th…

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Feeding on the Faithful: How Supernatural Thinking Empowered the Third Reich

…the sheer scale of the Second World War; and because of the unprecedented number of documents preserved in hundreds of archives and libraries across dozens of countries, this is obviously not the case. The second is that there’s little to no reality behind popular cultural representations of the Nazi supernatural. While many of these representations are exaggerated or erroneous, many others have some basis in reality. In the case of Hitler’s Mons…

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The Suppression of Sin in Evangelical Abolitionism: The Wilberforce Problem

…ecade, many Christians have only recently become aware of the topic in the last couple of years. This is, in large part, due to attention to the issue from the evangelical media machine. A number of books have been published by Christian presses in recent years with titles like God in the Brothel: An Undercover Journey into Sex Trafficking and Rescue, The Slave Across the Street: A True Story of How an American Teen Survived the World of Human Tra…

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The 50 Shades of Evangelicalism

…ievers of their compatibility. Their efforts are evident in the increasing number of books, conferences, and organizations—such as Francis Collins’ BioLogos—that have formed around the topic. Cracks are likewise showing in what once was understood as a unanimous and uncritical evangelical support of Israel as epitomized by a 2006 New York Times headline noting that, “For Evangelicals, Supporting Israel Is ‘God’s Foreign Policy.’” Just last month, …

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‘It’s a Gay Problem,’ and Other Myths From the Catholic Church’s Sexual Abuse Crisis

…re that tolerates them. In reality, the allegedly disproportionately large number of gay priests may be related to the problem, but it isn’t the cause of it. As Robert Mickens wrote in July, and as others have noted for years, the pathologizing of queer sexualities has driven many men to the priesthood, as the vow of celibacy offers what appears to be a safe haven from negotiating a forbidden path. As a result, although he’s careful to point out t…

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Right Wingers Say “Gay” is Out, But Try Putting “Unnatural Vice” On a Bumper Sticker

…eny minority of people may take away their right to tell gays and lesbians that God will send them to hell for all eternity — out of love, mind you. But, then again, anti-gay Evangelicals have a right to be afraid. After all, researchers say the actual number of Evangelicals may well be “as small as 7 percent of the total adult population.” Which means Evangelicals know just how effective a small number of people can be at taking away the rights o…

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“As Orthodox As They Come”: A Backstage Conversation With Rob Bell

…re so fantastic—brought the idea that the whole thing is static. I think a number of people picked up over the past three hundred years that space is empty, we move things around in space, and there are levers and pulleys and buttons. I think for a number of people, atheism is simply the rejection of somebody sitting on a cloud somewhere with a beard who might intervene from time to time. I think quantum physics, the little I know, it just intuiti…

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‘Heretics’ or ‘Atheists’? A Response

…ts how many of them believed in equal rights for women. Almost the entire class raised their hands. However, when he asked them how many of them were feminists, a much smaller number raised their hands. The professor and my friend could only conclude that the reason for this disparity was linked to negative connotations that students have with the word “feminist.” I wonder whether we questioners, unbelievers, and heretics have allowed ourselves to…

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What do the January 6 Commission, Covid Deaths and Gun Massacres All Have in Common? God’s Chosen

…commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection; the disproportionate number of Covid deaths in states run by Republican governors; this week’s shooting massacre in San Jose, Calif., and every other one like it; and, let’s see, what else? Well, feel free at the end of this piece to add your own examples. There are plenty more. All have in common the political concept that God divided the world between the elected and the unelected, that is, b…

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Competing Visions of Family & Freedom at UN; Methodists Try to Avoid Schism on Sexuality; Catholic Cardinal Denounces LGBT ‘Demonic Ideology’; Global LGBT Recap

…stem.” Africa: A call for reflection on advocacy structures and strategies Last week Pambazuka News published “Where do we go from here? A call for critical reflection on queer/LGBTIA+ activism in Africa,” by Liesl Theron, John McAllister, and Mariam Armisen. From the introduction: In the informal discussions that happen at the margins of African queer/LGBTIA+ workshops and conferences and in activist social spaces, we increasingly hear acknowledg…

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