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Yankton Sioux Revive Isnati Coming of Age Ceremony

…young Navajo women in this generation—including young women who leave the reservation for education—can return home to be with their relatives. What kind of support do our religious traditions give our daughters as they mature? How do we prepare them for and honor their transition into adulthood? What kind of imbalances and problems in our communities result from failing to prepare and honor young women? As a mother of two daughters and a feminis…

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Obama to Cave on Bush Tax Cuts: Letter to the Washingtonians, Chapter 1

…the sky, the phone didn’t ring. I supported the war to come, with only the reservation of who held the keys of command. Still, the enemies of the good must be punished, must be denied the safety of even a parched rocky hillside in a poor land. In 2002 and 2003, the grim infection of another war became more and more certain. I did not support this war. It was wrong, and I said so from my pulpit. I paid the price: enraged members of the congregation…

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40,000 Fundamentalists Can’t Be Wrong: Investigating Mormon Polygamy

…few things I find more entertaining than a cult leader going clear off the reservation. I’ve always been drawn to outsiders and fringe groups—people who stand apart from the mainstream. So the mere existence of a subculture of 40,000 fundamentalists living outside the law in America struck me as tremendously exciting. Not to mention the fact that their faith is American—it could scarcely be more so—and yet they live in hiding, worshipping at secre…

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Burning Down the Temple: Religion and Irony in Black Rock City

…ng north from Interstate 80 just east of Reno and through the Pyramid Lake Reservation. Pilgrims to Burning Man must navigate hordes of other attendees in beat-up campers, renovated school buses, rented U-Hauls, and sleek tour buses; as well as the many businesses catering to Burners along the way. This year the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe welcomed weary travelers with a choice of at least three Indian taco stands. Another sixty miles north, roadsid…

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The “Majority Victimhood”

…shed as severely as rape),” Buchanan intoned. When we had called to make a reservation earlier in the day, the lady had asked if we wanted a room with twin beds or the queen size bed. “Queen will be fine,” I told her. As we sat side-by-side on her finely-crafted sofa we knew the jig was up. They knew, and we knew they knew. They never said a word, and their hospitality continued to be perfect – but we were suddenly tired, and needed to go to bed. I…

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Sacrifice, Suffering, and Rick Santorum

…a child is born with Trisomy 18, to accept, and then care for her. Without reservation, I am in awe of those parents who do. But, why would one risk putting oneself in the position where a Trisomy 18 pregnancy would be statistically probable? Why would one choose, in effect, to take the risk of bringing a doomed child into the world? I am not arguing that such was the intention of Rick Santorum and his wife. But, I am arguing that the political an…

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Mormon Group Digging for Scriptural City of Zarahemla in Iowa is a Portrait of Religious Nationalism

…res a video lauding and thanking Confederate general Robert E. Lee without reservation for how they believed his work in the war contributed to their being able to find Zarahemla. Prior to the formation of what is now the United States, Montrose, Iowa was Sioux, Cherokee, and Iroquois land. This excavation perpetuates religious colonialism and superimposes a Mormon narrative onto indigenous persons, specifically a narrative that champions European…

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The Anti-Trans Hate Machine’s Conspiracies Don’t Stop at the US Border

…to trans rights. She’s also a staunch anti-choice activist. A significant number of the other signatories are members of a right-wing German think tank called, innocently enough, “Netzwerk für Wissenschaftsfreiheit” (Network for the Freedom of Science). This Network peddles reactionary talking points about allegedly “left-wing” universities and “cancel culture” while its website treats “race science” as legitimate scholarly discourse. The anti-tr…

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Argue-by-Number: A Suggestion for the Church

…n our side. Number 1 could be “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” Number 2: “God doesn’t discriminate.” Number 3: “Sex is only for procreation.” And so on. We could get clever, of course, and assign separate groups of numbers to arguments pro and con or to thematic clusters. I can even imagine some seminary librarian proposing a sort of Dewey Decimal System to organize the arguments. This would allow long series of arguments to be cited b…

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Francis Visits the Church that John Paul Broke

…umber of marriages within the church has declined by nearly half. Only the number of Catholic funerals has held steady. And while the number of Catholics overall has remained level, that’s largely due to Hispanic migration to the US; some 40 percent of those born Catholic have left the church. But numbers don’t tell the whole story. The church Francis will encounter is fundamentally different in character from the church of John Paul in two import…

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