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God Grows Up: Robert Wright’s Evolution of God

By Robert Wright

…away with these things in the first place when you live with a very small number of people. 2) That ancient Israel was monotheistic from the get-go. I don’t think monotheism emerged until the Babylonian exile of the 6th century BCE—nearly half a millennium after King David and way, way after Moses and Abraham supposedly signed on to monotheism. 3) That Jesus said “Love your enemy” and espoused universal love. I think the emphasis on a love that c…

UPDATE: An Abrupt End to Quebec Separatist Plan to Ban “Ostentatious Signs” of Religion

By Jeremy Stolow

…ians currently working in Quebec’s public sector—a less than insignificant number of which do happen to wear (typically small) crucifixes—and thus the visual code aimed its sights more narrowly on undesirable religious minorities, while at the same time allowing the government to proclaim the even-handedness of its approach. But whatever the actual intentions of the government, the deployment of this category of the ‘permitted sign’ wonderfully e…

Dan Webster’s Gothard-Speak

By Sarah Posner

…d “one-accord power” is when believers are in covenant with God, united in spirit and soul, with the power to reproduce (here Gothard appears to be referring to discipling, not sex). The believers must have no “competing affections” with their love for God, because “if we have any competing affections, God describes us as adulterers and adulteresses.” That power is broken by, well, the devil, who else? “One-accord power is extremely difficult to a…

What Does Heidegger’s Anti-Semitism Mean for Jewish Philosophy?

By Aubrey L. Glazer

…ulate a vibrant Jewish thinking beyond the binary of theism and atheism. A number of thinkers have reached the conclusion that the aniconic ramification of the monotheistic creed is the undoing and demythologization of theism whence it follows that the final iconoclastic achievement of monotheism would call for destroying the idol of the very God personified as the deity that must be worshipped without being idolized. Levinas had this in mind when…

We Are All Nuns

By Mary E. Hunt

…rst step in the implementation of the ﬁndings” is a personal meeting “in a spirit of mutual respect and collaboration.” This is rather fanciful since the LCWR leaders who received the document were not at all sure it was coming. They went to Rome with the intention of engaging in dialogue, not being presented with a fait accompli. Second, this move seems like an effort to cut off the head of lay people in the Church, beginning with the nuns. The…

The View from a Jew at a “Solemn Assembly” Like Rick Perry’s

By Sarah Posner

…legal restraints” against homosexuality. Engle, and his cohorts engaged in spiritual warfare, prophecy, and preparation for when God will make America a place free of the “Antichrist” spirit, are hardly a fringe part of the religious right; they are sought after and glorified by religious right elites. I covered the Women, Weapons of Warfare conference last summer in Henderson, Kentucky, because its founders, Lisa Bourland and Zimbabwean preacher…

First Gay Bishop? Give Me a Break

By Peter Montgomery

…Communion not invited to attend. Both his isolation and his indefatigable spirit are palpable as he chats with folks outside the gate, visits an AIDS charity, and hangs out in a coffee shop, never able to get close enough to his fellow bishops to have the kind of conversations he had hoped for. Director Alston gives plenty of time to other voices; both those allied with Robinson and those who oppose the changes he is asking the church to make. On…

Were Angels Just Lucid Dreams?

By Richard Schiffman

…to another realm of experience—a realm of heightened awareness and intense spiritual aliveness which challenges our very notions of what is real and what it means to be “awake.” The music we hear during lucid dreams is rapturous and drenched in feeling; the colors are more subtle and vibrant than the ones we see in the “real world”; the aromas and tastes are more real than real; the sex is explosive and ecstatic; and the insights are profound, if…

An Atheist Hero is Something to Be

By Carolyn S. Briggs

…nced that a movie would be more powerful in representing atheists than any number of books and speakers. You were at the national convention in Iowa. Some of the atheist speakers were pretty good, but you can’t compare any of them to a good preacher. I think atheism leaves out a whole emotional component from the argument. That’s wrong because some of the injury that religion causes is deeply emotional—children who have been killed in religious wa…

Obama’s “Phony Religion” is Environmentalism, Santorum Explains

By Julie Ingersoll

…our children may well fall prey to the vision-destroying false worship and spirit of the age—environmental pantheism. Environmental pantheism is a direct attack on the biblical family because it devalues human life and seeks to obliterate the mandate that men through their families take dominion over the earth. Most importantly, it substitutes the worship of the creature, for the worship of the Creator.” This is not to claim that Santorum is a sec…