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How “Gratitude” Underwrites Inequality, Power and Exclusion

…rket. But it does seem that the two opposing traditions have come together today to act as a powerful rhetoric of gratitude as indebtedness. Today we have a thriving self-help industry that churns out a steady stream of books on pop psychology, happiness, and gratitude. How well do these grapple with the issues you’ve raised? I was a little surprised by how little attention is paid to the history of gratitude in the self-help literature. I see my…

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In Repudiation of its Devastating Doctrine of Discovery, Vatican Masks the History and Responsibility of Catholic Church

…f course, referring to the Trump administration’s policy, not to practices promoted and normalized by his own Church in the past.) But, unlike contemporary border politics, Indigenous assimilation policies have always been specifically about land dispossession. California missions were eventually secularized—and the land was given to settlers and settler institutions. And as historian Brenda Child established, boarding schools were always about fe…

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Escape From Manhattan: Tech, Tragedy and Storytelling in Sandy’s Wake

…cient for most people in their contemplation of supernatural other-spaces, today more and more people rely upon mediated worlds for this sense of voluntary displacement. So to see Manhattan itself go belly-up after the storm, to watch how carnal we become when met with loss of power, has been a sobering and a saddening experience. All of this has made me think more squarely about how inured we have become to screens as the mediator of our imaginat…

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Workers Once Forced the Social Gospel Into Churches—Can It Happen Again?

…ge, official church statements of support for organized labor were scarce. Today, many denominations have such statements and they could be used to hold clergy and laity alike accountable in the midst of labor disputes. Given that rates of religious affiliation vastly outstrip support for unions among Americans today, there is ample room for such accountability. One other constant bears mention here: because church life in America operates on a vo…

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Why Has the Critique of Hypocrisy Run Out of Steam?

…ss of pretense. Our old friend self-deception But the hypocrisy we witness today may not be so much acts of pretense and public false performance as self-deception. In Hypocrisy: Ethical Investigations, Béla Szabados and Eldon Soifer suggest that our perception of hypocrisy has shifted in modern times. If Biblical and Medieval thinkers saw hypocrisy primarily as a matter of pretense, of the difference between the inner morality and outward perform…

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In “The Promise,” A Reminder That U.S. Apathy to Genocide Endures

…orical flourish, but a deeply ethical response to an unfolding crisis. Yet today, as we witness a new genocide of the Syrian people conducted by the government that is supposed to protect them, we are blocking any rescue of them. We look at the weakest members of society, the most vulnerable, and we see them as a threat. As limited as the refugee program was under the Obama administration, with its limited numbers, extended vetting process, and mi…

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‘Christian Warriors’: Who Are The Hutaree Militia And Where Did They Come From?

…the American Prospect, Gershom Gorenberg blasts the authors because they: promote conspiracy theories; they demonize proponents of arms control, ecumenicalism, abortion rights and everyone else disliked by the Christian right; and they justify assassination as a political tool. Their anti-Jewishness is exceeded by their anti-Catholicism. Most basically, they reject the very idea of open, democratic debate. In the world of Left Behind, there exist…

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What Do ‘The Christians’ Believe? Easter Reflections from a Non-Christian

…n enormous impact on neighborhoods, local politics, and church membership; today and in the future, Hispanic Catholics will make an impact on the life of the Church, ranging from an increase in bilingual services to intensified debates over undocumented immigrants. On the Protestant side, many denominations that were composed primarily of Anglo-Europeans, like Methodists in the nineteenth century, are confronting the rise of ethnic congregations s…

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With Christian Schools At Risk In Israel, Crickets from American Christian Conservatives

…tained that “we are witnessing that kind of growing repression in the U.S. today and it is fostering or at least giving rise to the spread of the persecution of Christians and religious minorities around the world.” If requiring health insurance for contraception is a “massive violation” of the rights of Christians, what is starving their schools of funding? In a letter promoting Family Research Council’s first-ever tour of Israel scheduled for th…

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LDS Church Launches New Website Calling for Greater Openness and Understanding on LGBT Issues

…start attending LDS temple services again. That’s what I want the most.’” “Today, our authoritarian Church that once had an answer for everything finally said, ‘We don’t really understand everything about being gay but Christ has commanded us to love and the Church needs to become a safe place.’ I’ve been praying for this since 1992.” There is no change in doctrine announced at mormonsandgays.com: no revision to the Church’s position that being ga…

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