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The Progress of Christ in Commercial America: A Review of Chris Lehmann’s The Money Cult

…delights in surfacing little-known factoids. These include the remarkable number of commercial hucksters who were preachers or else preachers’ kids (e.g., Richard Bolles of What Color is Your Parachute? fame—a former Episcopal priest) and the equally remarkable number of notable preachers who had strong commercial instincts and/or commercial roots (ranging from 18th-century superstar evangelist George Whitefield to 19th-century revivalist giant C…

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What’s So Troubling About Funding a Playground? How Trinity Lutheran Undermines the First Amendment

…ecycled tires. Prospective grantees were evaluated and selected based on a number of factors, including poverty level of the surrounding area and their willingness to generate media exposure for Missouri. In 2012, Trinity Lutheran, a Missouri Synod congregation, applied for the grant to renovate the playground of a preschool owned and operated by the church. While it ranked highly, Trinity Lutheran was denied the grant because of a department poli…

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Is Abortion No Longer Significant for Evangelicals — or Has it Just Become Like Water?

…fice, the rise in state laws trying to restrict abortion access seems to reflect fish flailing about in shallow tide pools all of a sudden cognizant of their situation—and fighting to re-enter the water they once took for granted. Burge concludes his article by observing that “The votes of white evangelicals do not turn solely on a woman’s right to choose, and other issues like immigration and issues of race may be even more effective at turning o…

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Boo! Trump’s Lead With Religious Voters Not As Bigly As You Might Think

…looks to be releasing new information on the Catholic vote on Halloween, a number which often closely tracks the final total of overall voters. It’s also a number that varies quite a bit by the racial breakdown. While Trump wins white Catholics 48-41, he gets absolutely crushed among Hispanics, 84-12. A few back-of-the-envelope calculations put us firmly in “Holy shit” territory. Even assuming a generous 50-50 split of black, Asian, and other Cath…

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Is Army’s New “Humanist” Designation Just Semantic Hooey?

…plains approved for military service, though MAAF reports that there are a number of Atheist and Humanist chaplain assistants.   The DOD’s ruling this week may, thus, have a meaningful impact on the free expression of religious identity for the reported 3.6% of service members who are Humanists and allow more diverse access to resources for spiritual care and the development of communities of support. While the decision certainly reflects growth i…

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Do iPads Cause Religious Experiences?

…d corporate skyscraper, where information is brought to the CEO at the top floor by a hierarchy of workers, divided into departments with specific tasks, functions, and assigned locations. More recent studies describe of the brain as something more akin to an old city, with circuitous roads, overlapping districts, and complex daily rhythms. Whereas a corporate skyscraper might include specific floors for various types of work, in an old city one c…

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Too Late for Apologies: Three Steps the U.S. Bishops Should Take to Prevent Another Sexual Abuse Scandal

…be live-streamed, starting Wednesday, June 15). The bishops will take up a number of issues, from the revised liturgy to assisted suicide, but their conversations are sure to be dominated by an issue that has been dogging them since the mid-1980s: sexually abusive priests and the bishops who enabled them. Ten years after Cardinal Bernard Law became the poster bishop for failed religious leadership, new revelations of episcopal misfeasance threaten…

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There’s Something Rotten in Ireland

…de bridges of faith as well as a shared perception of colonialism.  The conflict between Israel and Palestine isn’t at bottom about religion—or, I should say, it shouldn’t be. Some on both sides try to pitch it that way, and considering the territory that is right now fought over, it’s not surprising religion plays that role and is made a justification for actions and policies and aspirations. It’s just surprising when the most basic elements of r…

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And What of the Non-Jewish Jews?

…ancestry generations ago, a Jewish spouse, Jewish friends etc. In terms of numbers, Jews by religion or no religion make up 2.2% of the U.S. population, but if you add “People with a Jewish affinity” it rises to 2.7%, so that this category of people who are not considered Jews by the Jewish community but identify as Jews is nearly 25% of the Jews by religion or no religion, those we conventionally call “Jews.” The fact that there are so many Ameri…

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False Saviors: Trump, Cruz, and the Gospel of the Quick Fix

…nted for 60% of employment in 1979 accounted for only 46% by 2012; and the number of persons not in the labor force is growing. While some are getting richer, the numbers tell us, middle income earners are hobbled by shrinking purchasing power, disappearing job opportunities, and increasingly out-of-reach education. This is problem enough for the many who work hard and can’t figure out why they’re “losing ground,” as Pew wrote. Add to that fears o…

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