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Prosperity Gospel Prayers Aren’t Sufficient to Save Hurricane Victims

…angelicals like Laurie and Prosperity Gospel adherents recognize synergism between free will and divine providence in determining human actions (they wouldn’t be able to chide the poor for being lazy if not!), but they differ in their emphases. Whereas Laurie stresses “the power of the one we are praying to,” White-Cain stresses the power of the one who is praying. This is a subtle theological distinction that enables Prosperity Gospel preachers t…

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Holy Father, You’re Not Helping: The Problem with the Pope’s Plan to Consecrate Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary

…octrine of the Immaculate Conception, which holds that the Virgin Mary was free from Original Sin, is not a doctrine shared between the Catholic and Orthodox churches. In fact, it’s only been an official part of Catholic teaching since 1854. While the Eastern churches agree with Catholics that Mary was free from personal sin, the fact that the Eastern church has never accepted Augustine’s teaching on Original Sin means that the doctrine is superfl…

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How Will We Teach About Sikhism After the Tragedy?

…in religious and educational approaches to the world. Long-term alliances between religious institutions, and the mutual engagement between different forms of expertise, are essential to this paradigm. Steven Prothero rightly has pointed out the profound religious illiteracy of most American citizens, and has called for an educational curriculum that includes the study of religion as a prerequisite for 21st-century citizenship. Even more importan…

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New History Finally Recognizes Afro-Creole Spiritualists

…nvergence of these three themes. What is the cover? That is, for lack of a better term, a doodle. The séance records of the Cercle Harmonique were first kept by members, Henri Louis Rey and then François “Petit” Dubuclet. Petit handed the records onto his son-in-law René Grandjean, a French émigré and Spiritualist himself. Grandjean later donated the records to the special collections at the University of New Orleans. Grandjean was an amateur hist…

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State of the Union Stuck in that Olde-Time Semi-Niebuhrianism

…e blessed by a unique ability—indeed destiny—to be free of conflict, to be free of the past, to “believe in the same dream that says this is a country where anything’s possible.” Anything? Really? You can almost hear the pantheon of European Christian theologians groaning from their graves in disbelief.        But, hey, this is the New World where the frontier has traditionally offered the eternal lure of new beginnings and limitless wealth, even…

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Satanic “Black Mass” at Harvard Excites Conservatives

…. The National Catholic Register called the black mass “a Faustian bargain between Satan worship and academic freedom.” Oklahoma house member Rebecca Hamilton argued that it demonstrated why, “Harvard and its little troupe of elite schools are not healthy for this country.” She suggests that government research grants should be removed from Harvard and given to “non-academic organizations.” Modern-day Satanists understand that the black mass was a…

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Capitalism and Christianity

…data: 50 percent of white evangelicals say they believe capitalism and the free market are at odds with Christian values. According to the survey, white evangelicals are more likely to say the free market and Christian values are at odds than black Protestants, mainline Protestants, Catholics, and religiously unaffiliated Americans. On first glance that seems difficult to accept given white evangelicals’ overwhelming electoral support for the Repu…

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2012 Film Heralds Progressive Utopia, No Effort Required

…and his mother a Beat writer and editor.) In his twenties, he worked as a freelance journalist and founded a literary journal called Open City. “Once upon a time, not so long ago, I was a typical Manhattan atheist, suspicious, cynical, and disbelieving in metaphysical possibilities,” he writes in the opening of his book Breaking Open the Head. He blames his urbane pragmatism on his parents, whom he describes as “anti-religious” and whose unrealiz…

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Atheists Ignore Islamophobia at their Peril

…ing things like “go back to the Middle East, you pedophiles.” We should be free to criticize all religions, Islam included, but that doesn’t mean we should feel free to deride and scorn its adherents. It should go without saying that this isn’t a problem with atheism, but it is a problem among atheists and it’s one that is being largely ignored. 9/11 is frequently lifted up as the genesis of “New Atheism,” and it’s not uncommon to see people at at…

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The Battle for the Meaning of Religious Freedom Day

…a long time. Indeed, what comes up first in a Google search for Religious Freedom Day is ReligiousFreedomDay.com, the work of a California-based Christian right agency called Gateways to Better Education. This group is part of a wider movement that seeks to evangelize children in public schools—as detailed in Katherine Stewart’s book, The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children. Gateways states that they work w…

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