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God is a Terrifying Monster, and Other Takeaways from the Study of Vampires in Pop Culture

…napped with my iPhone while on a trip to southern Ohio. I didn’t intend to use it for the book; I just thought it was a great picture. But as I considered cover ideas, that image of a decaying church perfectly embodied what I was trying to say in the book. Is there a book out there you wish you had written? How do you even narrow down a question like this? Fiction? Non-fiction? Historical? Contemporary? Other than naming my all-time favorite novel…

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Even After an Obama Victory Reports of the Death of the Religious Right are Greatly Exaggerated

…has been a surprisingly vibrant discussion surrounding the potential redundancy of the phrase ‘frozen tundra.’ The New York Times’ sports pages reported on Lake Superior State University’s eagerly awaited List of “Words Banished From the Queen’s English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness, 2003 edition,” which banished ‘frozen tundra’ for being redundant (missing the irony, perhaps, that this isn’t a word, it’s a phrase). LSSU’s 2004 edit…

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LDS General Conference in the “Mormon Moment”

…’ ability to communicate with the public and encouraging Church members to use this time to dialogue candidly with friends about our faith, whether in person or by social media. Members should be certain to declare their faith in Jesus Christ, said Perry. As someone who writes about Mormonism for a general public, it’s my experience that most people actually know little about what we believe—especially how we relate to mainline Christianity. The M…

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Exploiting Health Care Debate to Restrict Abortion?

…dering as Wallis and a few others prepare to push Congress and the White House for further concessions. “[The president’s] commitment to these principles,” said Wallis, “means we can now work together to make sure that they are consistently and diligently applied to any final health care legislation.” For Wallis, that means that “no person should be forced to pay for someone else’s abortion and that public funds cannot be used to pay for elective…

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

…ightly charges against priests who have taken a vow of celibacy and are accused of sexually abusing children and misusing their power. Although it is not yet clear how Pope Benedict XVI will deal with these charges in the long run, his recent homily referring to the “petty gossip of dominant opinion” glossed over the seriousness of this scandal and what role, if any, he had in how the situation was mishandled at the Vatican, reminding his follower…

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Capricology: Television, Tech, and the Sacred

…myth. The cost of obsession: Ben Starks’ obsession with the one true God caused the death of hundreds. If Clarice Willow’s veiled glances reflect the same commitment we can expect lots of righteous appeals for a rectitudinous monotheism in place of a dithering polytheism. But at what cost? The slinky headmistress is less concerned with the morality of Ben’s suicide bombing than the timing. I’d vote for less talk and more action on this score. I’m…

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Time to Reject the “We’re All Sinners” Defense of Religious Conservatives

…t of powerhouse programs like Florida State and Auburn. Some are there because they used drugs. One was charged with burglary. Another punched a woman in a bar. Football players spout self-serving platitudes all the time. “No relationship is perfect” is how Ray Rice explained the video of him striking his then-fiancee in an elevator in 2014. But Johnson isn’t trying to justify himself. He doesn’t use our shared imperfection to paint over his sins….

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Why I Wrote the Freedom Seder And Why It’s Still Necessary 50 Years After Dr. King’s Assassination

…activist passion even while they admired his theology and scholarship. Because I discovered I was not alone, because there were others for me to meet upon my journey, my journey became possible. As we discovered each other, we granted each other the truths of our own different stories, ultimately the truth that we could share a journey of many different journeys. We discovered how astonishingly rich were the Judaisms—plural—we had barely known, an…

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Trump with back to camera stands before a frenzied crowd with raised fist.

With ‘Vermin’ Remark Trump Crosses Fully into Nazi Territory

…that ridiculous assertion are clearly snowflakes grasping for anything because they are suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome and their entire existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House.” [Note: In a puzzling move, the Trump campaign later tried to amend the statement to replace the phrase “entire existence” with “sad, miserable existence.”] In graduate school, I concentrated in political philosophy and ethics, w…

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Lady Gaga’s Secret Religion

…likened to the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly—hence, the use of butterfly patterns in Lady Gaga’s wardrobe. VC goes on to analyze Lady Gaga’s logo, a headless—and thus mindless—female figure riven by a jagged bolt of lightning. He also notes Lady Gaga’s penchant for hiding one of her eyes, evoking one of the most salient Illuminati symbols, the single “All-Seeing Eye.” Another sinister image portrays Lady Gaga as a mannequin, wit…

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