…ed-for that puts the employer at a safe moral distance from the act, where previously they had been complicit? If so, what’s the number? How long does the list of possible uses have to be to assuage the employer’s conscience enough to let the employees use their compensation for things the employer finds morally repugnant? See, here’s the thing I’d prefer not to believe—because I actually don’t like being cynical, despite how well it often plays o…
…he Talmud itself, expounded by Rashi (the most important Jewish Bible interpreter, whose interpretation every Jewish Day School student learns first), and detailed by Maimonides, arguably Jewish tradition’s single most influential thinker. Indeed, according to Ravitzky, Shapira’s response and that of the many Ultra-Orthodox anti-Zionists today reflects “fundamental tendencies and patterns of thought anchored in a long-standing tradition. In fact,…
…. adult population has remained fairly steady in recent decades is “the disproportionately high number of Catholics among immigrants to the U.S.,” which has masked “the large number of people who have left the Catholic church.” According to Pew, approximately one-third of those raised Catholic have left the church and 10 percent of all Americans are former Catholics. If you were a business losing one-third of your customers, wouldn’t you want to m…
…It does mean that we do not face the particular barriers of racism.” White privilege is primarily a systemic issue, not an individual one. Aside from the fact that (again) Jesus was not white (and that whiteness did not exist as we understand it today), the fact that Metaxas spotlights him to ask whether he had white privilege is to miss the point entirely. It’s also curious that he ties the concept of white privilege to the notion of sin. From a…
…more I doubt? (Do you know anyone who is really “without a doubt”?) The appropriate genre to express the kind of complex relationship many individuals have with something called “religion” isn’t survey data but literary journalism. The online religion magazine Killing the Buddha (shameless plug), founded in 2000 by Jeff Sharlet and Peter Manseau for people who are “both hostile and drawn to talk of God,” has survived and thrived because that mix…
…students in an awkward position, argues Keri Paul, since their university prohibits premarital sex. Is this the story, as the media narrative would have it, of a naive Christian college getting seduced by Big Data? I would argue that it’s the other way around. At ORU, modern technology is merely catching up to evangelical Christianity’s longstanding tradition of monitoring student bodies. The Student Body at ORU Students at conservative evangelic…
…important, desirable state. If a woman was not married, someone was either praying or fasting for her husband to come, or introducing her to any man who walked through the door. My book covered the years 1912-1964. What is the problem in the 21st century? I’d have to agree with the original blogger Deborrah Cooper that “blind faith” is the crux of the issue. It’s a bit difficult for pinpoint when the “black women can’t find a husband” meme started…
…Dallas. However, he reviewed only one world history textbook, and quite appropriately restricted his comments to his areas of expertise. The other reviewers on TTT’s list appear to have no academic credentials in history, geography, economics, or religious studies (though they do include an Ed.D.* in “educational leadership,” and a professor of foreign languages). Despite a lack of pertinent credentials, the TTT reviewers weighed in on a wide ran…
By Randall Balmer, Anthea Butler, Evan Derkacz, Jeff Sharlet, and Diane Winston
…odied in Americanized Arminianism—a Protestant tradition of good works and propriety, “distinguished liberals” and polite realpolitik. “Arminian moralism,” notes historian Charles Sellers in his study of Finney’s age, The Market Revolution, “sanctioned competitive individualism and the market’s rewards of wealth and status.” It did not endorse explicit greed; rather, those whom the market rewarded—Finney’s financial backers, the “judges and lawyer…
…middle ground is not more illuminating in every case. In fact, a signature problem of Protestant liberals is their tendency to hold out hope that rings false. Yet shouldn’t a flagship institution of liberation theologies get any benefit of doubt? There is also a problem—more attuned to geeks but nevertheless galling—that the historical importance of Niebuhr was to argue against the sort of reasoning Hedges advances (mocked by Niebuhr as “purist” o…
