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The Lesser and the Greater Pilgrimage

…exuberance. Sorta like skydiving tandem before following up my lessons for free-fall skydiving. That way I can focus on the details I am trying to learn now and be better prepared. As far as umrah, the lesser pilgrimage, goes; it stands to reason that people can visit the ka’abah any time of the year. And so it is. There are still the same ihram prescriptions. There are still certain rites that should be performed. But unless a journey to Makkah c…

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‘Landmark’ Speech From LDS Leader on LGBTQ Rights and Religious Freedom Was More Like a Sunnier Groundhog Day

…ric. Headlines said he called for a “peaceful resolution” to the conflicts between religious freedom and nondiscrimination. Notably, none of these articles mention either Oaks’ advocacy for a less rigid boundary—“a curtain”—between church and state, or his assertion that Employment Division v. Smith, a 30-year-old religious freedom opinion written by no less than ultra-conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, must be overturned. The self-described “mo…

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How “Gratitude” Underwrites Inequality, Power, and Exclusion

…elites could pit the masses against each other, creating a vertical divide between the people in place of a horizontal divide between the classes. That’s how it stops being a democratizing force and starts to insulate the status quo. Gratitude operates in a similar way, with similar potentials. When we find ourselves in a position of owing—and people in a democratic society always owe something to other people—we may become vulnerable to control….

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Good (Enough) Christians — Russell Moore in The Atlantic Illustrates the Limitations of ‘Christian Nationalism’ as Category

…use they are outspoken opponents of Christian nationalism. Clearly we need better language to address anti-democratic Christian beliefs. So how does one responsibly cover Christian nationalists these days? To begin with, we must find language that doesn’t allow for the easy whitewashing of “respectable” Christians who hold authoritarian theological beliefs. In order to do this, journalists and commentators need not eschew the rhetoric of Christian…

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RD Turns Six: What’s New, What’s Next…

…rades to the site—an enhanced reading experience, better integration with social media, peace on earth. (We’ll be updating via our newsletter, here.) It’s our birthday, but it’s you who deserve the party (and the gluten-free, kosher, vegan, cruelty-free cake). Thank you for reading, for writing, and for your thoughtful and dynamic engagement with the ever-evolving question of religion in public life and culture. Yours, The Eds.  …

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Trump’s Fear and Loathing Won’t Silence The Nation’s Sole LGBT Muslim Organization

…e very survival of minority communities. As MASGD puts it, “none of us are free until all of us are free.” To get a sense of what motivates MASGD’s activism, particularly in the current political atmosphere, I interviewed four pioneers of the American LGBT Muslim movement: Faisal Alam, Urooj Arshad, Raquel E. Saraswati, and Tynan Power. These leaders are members of MASGD’s Steering Committee, and were gracious enough to discuss with me their appre…

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Unintended Consequences: Overturning Roe v. Wade May Endanger This Cherished Evangelical Practice

…marry a partner regardless of sex (Obergefell v. Hodges), the right to be free from compulsory sterilization (Skinner v. Oklahoma), and the right to be free from government-mandated surgery (Winston v. Lee). One only needs to look around the world to see what the ADF has planned next for the United States, which includes dismantling other civil rights of marginalized populations. While evangelicals wait with bated breath for the end of Roe, they…

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Everything Was Better When We Had God In Our Schools

…daughter during her recital. • March 11, 1908, Boston, Massachusetts. Elizabeth Bailey Hardee was shot to death by Sarah Chamberlain Weed at the Laurens School, a finishing school in Boston. Weed then turned the gun on herself and committed suicide. • April 15, 1908, Asheville, North Carolina. Dr. C.O. Swinney shot and fatally wounded his 16-year-old daughter Nellie in a reception room at Normal and Collegiate Institute. He then committed suicide…

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Biden’s New Domestic Terrorism Strategy Addresses Trump’s Omission of White Nationalism, But Fails to Address Targeting of Black and Brown Americans

…claration that it respects the “foundational constitutional protection for free speech and association.” Indeed, the history of surveillance in the United States beginning with the establishment of the FBI in 1908 is the chronicle of infringing upon civil liberties and freedom of speech in order to target individuals and communities deemed to be politically subversive, including (perceived) communists, civil rights leaders, and communities of colo…

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The Contraceptive Mandate and Animal Suffering

…ther blogs has accused Singer of an “advocacy sleight of hand” in equating freedom of religion with “freedom to worship.” Smith and his crowd want not only an expanded definition of what is to be a religion, they want any activity a group or individual claims is “religious” to fall outside the scope of government control. He says “the exercise of one’s religion involves how the faithful live their lives outside of the church, synagogue, temple, or…

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