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NC’s Gay Marriage Ban: “It’s Going to Hurt the Church”

By Nicole Greenfield

…n North Carolina. Referring to Bakker’s theological “feel-good stance” as “cheap grace,” Rev. Mark Creech of the Christian Action League attributed Bakker’s preaching of a “toxic and counterfeit gay-affirming gospel” to being injured by the church as a child. “In some ways he’s right,” Bakker told me in response. “It’s called empathy.” He continued: “Every time someone accuses me of cheap grace, I go back and say no, it’s free grace. Grace is free…

Who’s to Blame for BP?

By David True

…those of us whose lifestyles are dependent upon a ‘religious’ devotion to cheap oil. The deepest irony of all is that BP, along with the other oil companies, has come to function as a god. The truth, buried beneath all the oil and punditry, is that our devotion to this false god has led to the suffering of innocents, in the oceans and beaches, in the marshes and ecosystems, and in our communities. We have been slow, too slow by far, to realize th…

Celebrate Jesus with Weird Merchandise!

By Gwynne Watkins

…tween the bunnies-and-eggs version of Easter, and the church-service version. Merchandisers are wise to define Easter by marshmallow chicks and colorful baskets, rather than bring theology into it. But there are always exceptions. One is the Oriental Trading Company. Founded to create cheap plastic toys for carnivals, OTC is now a leading supplier of cheap plastic stuff for church groups and Christian schools. Their party supply catalog always con…

Interview with Karen Armstrong

By Andrea Bistrich

…made some of these countries the target of Western greed. In the West, in order to preserve our strategic position and cheap oil supply, we have often supported rulers (such as the shahs of Iran, the Saudis and, initially, Saddam Hussein) who have established dictatorial regimes which suppressed any normal opposition. The only place where people felt free to express their distress has been the mosque. The modern world has been very violent. Betwe…

Are American Christians “Persecuted”?

By Eric C. Miller

…t’s put that cheap argument to bed. At Patheos, Benjamin Corey shakes that cheap argument awake: Can we stop complaining about this bogus idea that American Christians are persecuted now? I mean, really. Can we stop? The world needs us to turn from ourselves and focus on this real persecution, because it’s evil and must be exposed and stopped. However, our own self-centeredness as Americans is getting in the way of the discussion on real anti-Chri…

The Economy is Racism: Ending Race-Based Economic Violence is the Real Challenge of This Moment

By Peter Laarman

…st majority of African Americans have been kept down at the very bottom in order for the American System of cheap labor to function. Although Henry Clay opposed slavery in theory, the need for this ongoing subjugation was most certainly in the mind of The Great Compromiser who coined the term “American System” during the expansionist years of ‘Indian removal’ and a related Second Middle Passage that took over one million people in shackles from th…

Updated: My Work on Confederate Monuments Leaves This Christian Ethicist Distrustful of Calls for Reconciliation and Healing

By Ryan Andrew Newson

…k of reckoning with injustices suffered and injustices rendered. In other words, the problem isn’t that easy calls for reconciliation are too Christian or too good. The problem is that they really aren’t reconciliation at all. They’re mere shadows of this hard-won practice, which at its best moves through the processes of discernment, reckoning, and repentance before daring to speak that word. Indeed, no invocation of reconciliation is worthy of t…

Wall St., Main St., Religion, and the Bailout

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…ident that it can do so right here in Quitman. Yet there were a perplexing number of Antique and Gift Shops, the sorts of thing that normally require a significant tourist industry or leisure class to support. That kind of shopping takes place on the weekends, yet all but one store on Main Street in Quitman was closed this Sunday. I was especially taken by the two largest of them, both of them going out of business. Romine’s Furniture especially c…

Modernity’s Fraternity: What Dan Brown Gets Right

By Samuel Biagetti

…had been properly trained, and so created a guild with a system of secret words and signs by which master craftsmen could identify one another. Masons were mobile, traveling long distances to the building sites of castles and cathedrals. They were detached from ordinary medieval society and regarded with suspicion by townspeople. Thus, the makeshift “lodges” where masons worked (and sometimes lived) at building sites became home to a subculture, a…

Hookers for Jesus: Sex and Salvation on the Strip

By Nicole Greenfield

…us have drawn their share of criticism. “Some Christians think we are just cheap harlots and tell us so,” she says. “But to be honest, we really don’t care.” Even the television show, which begins with a warning about its potentially disturbing content, seems to favor sex over religion, the hookers over Jesus. “The parts that you will see is what [Investigation Discovery] chose to portray,” Lobért explained to The Christian Post: “There are a lot…