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Conservatism’s Bulldog Claims Psychology Tilts Liberal

…vating the most refined bourgeois values. Yet as an advocate of individual freedom and as a Jew with relatively newly-minted political rights, he also had to promote the democracy of the Third Republic against its ultra-nationalist conservative critics. Of course democracy could so easily lead to laws and values dictated by the masses—the same rude mobs calling for Dreyfus’ blood in the streets of Paris.   How, then, to harmonize free thought with…

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Cardinal Who Once Compared Gay People to Klan Warns Church is Being “Despoiled”

…church and state we thought we enjoyed just a few months ago, when we were free to run Catholic institutions in conformity with the demands of the Catholic faith, when the government couldn’t tell us which of our ministries are Catholic and which not, when the law protected rather than crushed conscience. The state is making itself into a church. Oh, to be able to perform an exegesis of that paragraph! Allow me an attempt: “Manipulated public disc…

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Anti-LGBT Culture Warriors On The March; More in Global LGBT Recap

…rnational, the global arm of the LGBT-equality-opposing Alliance Defending Freedom, recently posted a promotional video portraying themselves as defenders of people being persecuted for their faith. “ADF International has a presence at every major international institution on the planet,” says Executive Director Paul Coleman. In the video, ADF International’s Director of UN Advocacy Elyssa Kor criticizes the United Nations for trying to force coun…

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

…hing 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. The reason I understand the Bible the way I do is probably because I interpret through the pain that I’ve been through. But it’s not me compromising. I know wha…

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The Roberts Court’s “Special Solicitude” for Corporations

…Smith jurisprudence,” she wrote. RFRA didn’t expand the scope of religious freedom rights, and in the case law there is “no support for the notion that free exercise rights pertain to for-profit corporations.” There’s a reason for that, Ginsburg maintained. While the Constitution and the courts have long recognized a “special solicitude” for religious organizations, there is no such solicitude for commercial entities. The reason for that is “hardl…

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Krapp’s Last Tweet: The Rise (and Fall?) of Privilege in the Digital Economy

…with cyberspace integrated the spirit of American exceptionalism, faith in free markets, and a view of computer networks as nature’s next evolutionary leap. Together they enacted the game-changing Telecommunications Act of 1996, which laid the foundations for the industry giants of subsequent decades. On Tailspins and Technical Leaps of Faith The celebratory entrance of technical and political elites into the so-called New Economy constituted a le…

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Is America Willing to Be Freed from Its Demons?

…s our enemies, and the latter constructs a false sense of independence and freedom.” I don’t know if we Americans, especially Christians in America, want to be freed from our demons. The late New Testament scholar Walter Wink defined the demonic as an array of human and supra-human forces aligned to destroy life. The demonic was both individual and structural, personal and collective, sentient and mechanical. Wink’s expansive way of writing about…

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Conservative Catholics Try to Domesticate Laudato Si

…concentrate on—wait for it—sex and marriage-related issues and “religious freedom,” which is also focused on the pelvic zone. And as if to prove how tone-deaf they are, on Sunday the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops kicked off its fourth annual “Fortnight for Freedom” religious liberty extravaganza, which runs through July 4. Surprisingly (for an event that marries an archaic English expression to a vague nod to American Independence and Catho…

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Channeling T.S. Eliot, Ross Douthat Fears The Loss of Taboo

…nnection with Islam, forced by Islam’s “radical fringe.” Otherwise, we are free to offend, liberally and often. Taboos have been eradicated, limits eliminated. But we’ve heard that all before. Writing in the 1930s, modernist poet and essayist T.S. Eliot begrudged a society with nothing left to blaspheme against: “I am reproaching a world in which blasphemy is impossible.” Eliot believed it had all been done: righteous heroes made into laughingstoc…

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Show Me the Way of the Hebrews: The Making of an African American Rabbi

…lack theology, making Judaism a logical model for crafting a new faith for free people. But Jesus, too, was important in black faith, and most of the Jewish-inspired denominations that sprang up did not renounce him. Instead, they claimed white Jews were imposters to the faith who had misunderstood Christ’s significance. Broadly speaking, these black “messianic” groups held beliefs that resemble elements of Seventh Day Adventism and Jews for Jesus…

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