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Under Water: Waiting for the Flood (of Awareness) in Louisiana

By Drew Konow

…rm began to saturate the soil and the rivers began to rise. Her house sits right outside of Baton Rouge, in Denham Springs, and she assured me that she was keeping a close eye as the waters rose in her area. The possibility of destruction has a strange way of inspiring reflection on personal property. On the phone, I told my mom, “I love your house. It is so perfect for you.” And I do. I love her house not because I grew up there (I did not) or be…

Postcards From the Edge: Crackpot Anti-Gay Crusader Goes Global

By Bill Berkowitz

…e as to make their ministries almost unclassifiable. Is this the religious right? It’s not clear that even those who appreciate the label would want this guy. Although tired of “being smeared” and “defamed” on the internet by “gay apologists,” as he puts it, Lively, who is a lawyer, has decided not to sue. Instead he is embarking on a campaign “to give them a taste of their own medicine and expose the SPLC as the blindly partisan, anti-Christian h…

Not All American Muslims Feel the Dread I Do

By Huma Mohibullah

…tionalized and deployed equally by Democrats and Republicans, from left to right, albeit in different discursive tones. Whereas prominent figures and ordinary citizens on the right might openly attack Muslims as “rag heads” who subscribe to a “wicked” faith, those leaning left tend to reproduce the same demeaning tropes through a liberal veneer of concern about Muslim women, preserving secular values, national security and so on. Therefore, as som…

The Banality of Bernie

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…micro-managed by men with photographic memories who could describe, on the phone at long distance, where a file was located, and what page in that file needed scanning. There was obsessive record-keeping, coupled with a mastery of spin. (Squillari suggests that Madoff planted several pieces of evidence in his office in order to be arrested on his own timetable and on his own terms). The most haunting line in the article is a description of the sta…

A Religious History of American Neuroscience

By Leigh Eric Schmidt

…me in the SPR threw themselves behind a new contraption called the “psycho-phone” through which the inventors claimed to be hearing the voices of angels. The psychophone no doubt sounds absurd, but I can’t say that it sounds much more far-fetched than a transcranial magnetic stimulator. Both demonstrate the enduring cultural impulse toward techno-theologizing. However much neuroscientists might want to forswear an interest in the metaphysics of th…

Religion at Decade’s End

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…espect national borders, nor traditional regulations concerning individual rights and non-combatant immunity. There is a seismic and revolutionary potential yet to be fully exploited in the new global communications technologies. And this world, our one and only, is currently in the midst of dramatic changes that are staggering in their suddenness and frightening in their potential for transforming the very habitability of this, our only home. I…

It’s Barack v. the Bible, Says Barton

By Paul Harvey

…rward into the “suburban warriors” who empowered the rise of the Goldwater Right in Cold-War California, and then to what came to be called the “New Christian Right” of the 1970s and 1980s. Communism disappeared from the enemies list after 1989 (except for older Christian Right stalwart David Noebel, who keeps even that faith while leading the Christian Anti-Communist Crusade even into his retirement), but Islam, an economic “New World Order,” the…

Global LGBT Recap: Culture War Claims More Victims

By Peter Montgomery

…Ugandans and reflect poorly on Uganda’s commitment to protecting the human rights of its people. It also will mark a serious setback for all those around the world who share a commitment to freedom, justice and equal rights.” Obama National Security Advisor Susan Rice had urged Museveni not to sign the bill, which she called a “huge step backward for Uganda and the world.” Still, human rights advocates in Uganda and the U.S. said the American gov…

Southern Baptist Convention Kicks Out Gay Attendees, Waffles on White Supremacists

By Sunnivie Brydum

…nvention considers whether or not to denounce white supremacy and the “alt-right,” it apparently has no such equivocation over the place for LGBT Christians at its annual gathering: gays and those preaching tolerance for them are not welcome inside the Convention’s annual meeting. At least, that’s the message sent loud and clear to a small group of activists who tell RD they were “forcibly removed” from the convention this morning in Phoenix, Ariz…

Does the Science Show that Spirituality Will Benefit Your Child?

By Michael Schulson

…relationship happens within or without of religion. It is part of our birthright, it is part of our nature. The rigid adherence to creed was also identified in the 1997 paper by Kendler—a close and rigid adherence to creed. And that is not protective against substance abuse. It has a small effect in preventing kids from ever trying substances, but once that boundary is crossed, it is not protective against heavy use, it is not protective against d…