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Can the “Spiritual Left” Make the Change They Wish to See?

…blican (62% to 31%). But what kind of political activism does spirituality promote? The culture of American spirituality tends to emphasize civic action through emotional self-development. Spiritual practitioners argue that we can best change the world through changing ourselves. If we properly govern our own emotional responses, lowering negative emotion while cultivating positive emotion we make our country a better place, one interpersonal inte…

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A Somewhat Cynical Take On The Future And Soul Of Evangelicalism

…ism Of Their Community!” Or, for short, “A Day That Ends In ‘Y’”. Oh Gosh, today ends in a y! And indeed, there is another installment, this time from The Washington Post: About 50 top leaders of major evangelical institutions will attend an invitation-only gathering this week to discuss the future and the “soul” of evangelicalism at a time when many of them are concerned their faith group has become tainted by its association with divisive politi…

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Can Christians Lie? How Conservative Evangelical Bible Interpretation Has Shaped ‘Truth’

…accepting biological evolution like virtually all professional scientists today, writes of a private conversation he had with Morris one morning in the hotel cafeteria they both were staying at following their public debate the evening before. Miller questioned Morris with the aim of getting him to admit in private that this was all a charade, and that Morris was knowingly perpetrating a fraud on the public. Miller expected a “charlatan,” but dis…

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The Tense History Behind Jimmy Carter’s Liberty U. Commencement Address

…. The same elite establishment that Jesus condemned remains the real enemy today. Falwell Jr.’s need to make Carter acceptable to the Liberty crowd (who Carter joked was larger than Trump’s crowd the previous year) did not end there. Unlike his father, Falwell Jr. praised Carter for his 1976 Playboy interview because Carter was willing to follow the teachings of Jesus in Matthew 5:27-28: “You have heard it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not…

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Sikh Temple Shooting: Two Massacres and the Virtual Transformation of Trauma

…and 2012. I loathe to say this, but what if the 1984 massacre had happened today? Could the ruthless terror unleashed on innocent Sikhs have been curtailed before it became a trauma of magnifying proportions that the world continues to remain oblivious to? Could the effects of that trauma have been lessened? Even today it is only a handful of what sociologist Arlene Stein calls ‘memory-workers’ who are using the internet in defining 1984 as a trau…

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The Atheist Encounter with Christianity: A Failure to Disbelieve?

…y view on this topic may change as I grow older and (hopefully) wiser, but today I think that the kingdom of God is about the here and now, which is all we really ever have, and not about the hereafter. This is not the orthodox view, of course, and many Christians disagree with me, and I take their disagreements seriously. But my overall point remains: Christianity is not formulizable and it is not about the checking off of belief boxes. These car…

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Why Anti-Gay Bullying is a Theological Issue

…old Tyler Clementi, 13-year-old Seth Walsh, and 19-year-old Raymond Chase. Today, it is very clear to me that profound sadness and stunned silence is no longer a suitable, appropriate, or adequate response. From Lamentation to Indignation My sadness began to change into something different with each successive news story about another gay teen hanging himself, shooting himself, or jumping off a bridge. As I saw the faces of these young victims and…

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Seeking Jobs, Beach Clean Up Workers Come From All Walks of Life

…ng to save?” Kumrits asked his friend. “Man, he sounded just like we sound today.” But if you ask them what they are, they really don’t know. And they’re fine with that. They don’t know where they will be spiritually in a year, but they don’t seem very much preoccupied by it. Today, their spirituality comes from the Tao Te Ching. They are dedicated to shedding their possessions. Kumrits lives year round in a camper. The two men are constantly chal…

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Cinema and the Re-Creation of the World

…“Christ figure.” In the immortal words of Woody Allen, “If Jesus came back today and saw what was going on in his name, he wouldn’t stop throwing up.” It is safe to say that Allen’s comments can be applied to a lot of religious film criticism. Did you have a specific audience in mind when writing? As with the above point the main audience is, I hope, students. I tried to write this in an accessible way, introducing key themes in religious studies…

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The Oil Spill and “Real Deathliness”

…utives or incompetent engineers or Obama or who-the-hell-ever we turn into today’s whipping boy. But the truth that everyone wants to deny is that the whole culture is sick from top to bottom. We’re all addicted to oil in ways we can’t even grasp, and nobody—nobody—has any plausible idea of how to break free from the system. There are plenty of ideas floating around, yes, but there are no easy answers to put into practice today. If there were, we’…

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