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Turn On The News: This Isn’t a Split, It’s a Tiny Sliver of Conservatives Walking Out the Door — Introducing A New Media Criticism Column

By Daniel Schultz

…ces to consider. This isn’t exactly quantum mechanics; it’s the “speaking truth to power” principle that every J-school claims to teach its students. But political journalists forget it all the time when they allow their sources to run through rehearsed talking points without challenge. And for whatever reason, as Chrissy Stroop has pointed out on numerous occasions, religion journalists are particularly deferential to the subjects of their storie…

A Comedy Writer Confronts ‘Mind-Shredding Evil’ in Uganda

By Frederick Clarkson

…rmer top commanders, (an ex-bodyguard for president Museveni) was hired to run it. Bussmann learned that this was more the rule than the exception. Writing on the Huffington Post she recently declared that some 20-66,000 children have been direct victims of what amounts to a “fake war.” “But if everyone knew… why had nobody stopped him?” she wondered. “All around me, millions were being pumped into the effort.” “Only a cynic,” she continued, “coul…

Taking Aim at Religion Itself, Apostles Prime Networks For Real-World Violence

By Frederick Clarkson

…Dutch in the dream. (Isaiah 45 introduces the story of the Persian King Cyrus, who Apostle Lance Wallnau famously linked to Donald Trump as part of an effort to justify his candidacy to evangelical Christians.) Hood goes on to say that the Ekklesia is about to go out on the “battlefield” to “reclaim geography that belongs to God… to take back those nations that have been under the tutelage and oppression of demonic forces.” At the end of the drea…

Brownback Nomination Further Evidence That “Religious Freedom” Is Code For “Conservative Christian Supremacy”

By Sunnivie Brydum

…d to vilify Muslims.” Brownback’s nomination is also the latest sign that Trump is willing to hire even economic “losers” if it appeals to his base, which has been grumbling lately about the president’s attacks on his own attorney general, Jeff Sessions. If confirmed, Brownback would be the first religious freedom Ambassador-at-Large who did not attend seminary or a pursue a similar denominational education. He’d be the first Catholic to hold the…

UPDATE: Sam Brownback as Religious Freedom Ambassador? His Distinguished Predecessor Hopes for the Best

By Peter Laarman

…le many conservative senators, including then-presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, could easily have made an issue of David’s well-publicized positions in support of abortion and gay rights, they and other senators chose to focus only on his capabilities for the ambassadorial position. I came away even more admiring of Rabbi Saperstein as a model of fairness and generosity in his own person. May his tribe increase. *** As to my assess…

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

By Ed Knudson

…eighbor. Luther rejected the distinction between divine church and secular world, the world was as much the realm of God’s grace and preservation as the church—the whole world is the place of God’s creation. So Lutherans hear in sermons again and again that they are sent into the world to love the neighbor, to carry out their vocation in the world. The secular is not the place where God is absent, it is the place where Lutherans are called to serv…

The World is (Always) About to End, No Zombies Required

By Kelly J. Murphy

…ative arc? Perhaps most importantly, how can we make things better in this world when it seems like this world is at its worst? As I teach about apocalyptic texts once again, I mourn for the Strack family. Though they are a family I did not know, I mourn for their lost lives and their surviving relatives, their friends, and community. The end of the world is always and never near—and it matters that we understand why. Photo by flickr user Stephe…

As Pat Robertson Retires, Here Are 10 of His Most Cringeworthy Moments

By Chrissy Stroop

…t alternative media ecosystem—launching CBN well over three decades before Fox News Channel came on the scene in 1996—Robertson has done incalculable damage to American civil society. In 1991, he published a book that popularized New World Order conspiracy theories among evangelicals, and his influence is reflected in our current post-truth political landscape, in which white evangelicals regularly collaborate with street-brawling fascists and are…

Muslims for Trump

By Haroon Moghul

…s vile comments about Mexicans. It brings to mind a comment I heard from a FOX News contributor, to the effect of “Trump says out loud what we only think to ourselves.” I desperately wanted to ask, “You think most Mexican-Americans are drug dealers and rapists and murderers?” The third was a fellow with whom I had a discussion about anti-Muslim bigotry, which he insisted was not real or at least exaggerated; I countered that, given his BMW sedan a…

#PrayForBoston: Prayer as a Meme

By Elizabeth Drescher

…ator for intercessory prayer to a supreme being or power. No other word in English, so far as I know, marks that register as does the word “prayer.” Marks it, I suppose, and moves on to the next new thing in the digitally-integrated world, rather than calling for the physical, spiritual, and relational action that traditionally completes the practice itself. We might conclude, then, that the prayer meme has cheapened an ancient, arguably venerable…