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“Dark” Skin No Longer a Curse in Online Book of Mormon

By Joanna Brooks

…Mormon did not feature summary chapter headings. Headings were added in the 1920s and revised in the 1980s by Bruce R. McConkie, author of Mormon Doctrine (now out of print), a compendium of Mormon theology controversial both for its explicit anti-Catholicism and its promulgation of adoctrinal racist folklore, as we covered here at RD. In 1981, the Church changed the language of 2 Nephi 30: 6 to remove the statement that Lamanites who repented wou…

Religious Right “Compassion” and Other Lies

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…Church in America, and other denominations, have come to realize that the spirit of the law in their Holy book is one of love and acceptance of everyone instead of the bullying, compassionless, soul-killing, letter of the law. Mr. Sprigg, when Jesus looked out on the crowds that followed him, that book you love more than your fellow human beings, tells us that he had compassion on them. What did he do then? Did he tell them to change? Did he bull…

“Mad to Be Saved”: On the Road as Cautionary Tale

By Jay Michaelson

…o yearns for a love that Dean can never fully give him. With the sensual spirituality (or spiritual paganism, if you like) secularized into mere “kicks,” the moral balance of On the Road lurches to one side. In the book, there’s a productive tension between the evanescent, yet incandescent, mysticism of pure human experience on the one hand, and the deep ethical consequences of human relationship on the other. This is a crucial and recurring rel…

“You’ve Never Met a Muslim”

By Hussein Rashid

…and, for ours, that was an impossibly beautiful Tuesday morning. September 11 put an end to the long 1990s when, as it is nearly inconceivable to imagine today, the biggest problem in our post-Communist, unipolar world seemed to be Monica Lewinsky. I had long planned to become a corporate lawyer. Two years later, I enrolled in law school only to leave within months. There were many reasons why, but among them was this: I could no longer go down t…

The Kids Are All Wrong: Texas Tosses The Enlightenment

By Burke Gerstenschlager

…aid as much when she prayed: “I like to believe we are living today in the spirit of the Christian religion. I like also to believe that as long as we do so, no great harm can come to our country.” Dunbar was quite clear: only our citizens’ shared belief in Jesus and Divine Providence can save and preserve Texas and the nation—and the SBOE’s new social studies curriculum will teach the youth of Texas just that. Why Keep Calvin? More important than…

Pope Mum on LGBTs in Uganda; Church Defends Anti-Marriage-Equality Efforts in Australia; Cyprus Passes Civil Partnerships; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…led to abstinence.” While in Uganda, Francis visited a shrine to a group of 19th-Century martyrs, Catholic and Anglican men who were brutally executed by a traditional king because, according to lore, they refused his sexual advances, though some scholars say it was because of their dedication to defending and spreading their faith. Their martyrdom was cited by Theresa Okafor at the World Congress of Families as an explanation for Uganda’s harsh A…

Women’s Equality in the Church is No Longer Negotiable

By Mary E. Hunt

…especially regular churchgoers, to redirect their giving. There are untold numbers of religious/spiritual non-profits, including women’s religious orders that are good alternatives to the local parish for providing services in the community. If one is conscience stricken about worshipping in a building one does not pay to heat, I suggest either worshipping elsewhere for a while and/or placing a check in the collection made out to the power company…

Bill O’Reilly’s Biblical Misremembering

By Jess Peacock

…ples regularly asking Jesus where he is going in the future (John 13:36 and 14:5), he says, “But now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’” Perhaps the writer of the gospel suffered from some misremembering of his own, or maybe Jesus was playing the trickster—or it’s a mistake in the text. There are Bible-believing Christians who are aware of these scriptural errors and inconsistencies, but choose to ignore…

Rejecting the Binary: Why Left v. Right Doesn’t Work

By Eric C. Miller

…al campaigning and fundraising. Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson’s book The Spirit of Compromise: Why Governing Demands It and Campaigning Undermines It has done a good job explaining how the endless campaign discourages making a deal between opponents. The need to raise funds for the next campaign causes candidates to be uncompromising. If candidates were given the same amount of money for campaigning, it would change the dynamic because the need…

Evangelical “Sexual Purity” Is Not About Sex—It’s About Power

By Sara J. Moslener

…rigins of sexual purity. Right now I’m interested in the debate between the 19th century reformer Frances Willard and the journalist and anti-lynching activist, Ida B. Wells. Wells made it known that lynching in the late 19th/early 20th century was justified by the myth of the black, male rapist. Most lynchings occurred because black men were accused of raping white women. Wells’ investigation into hundreds of lynching cases determined that most o…