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LDS General Conference in the “Mormon Moment”

…ave asserted the Christianity of Mormon belief for national audiences, the number one reaction has come from Christians who seek to correct my understanding of my faith and remind me that Mormons are not, in their eyes, Christians. Some assert that they’ll be praying for my mistaken soul (and the soul of my Jewish husband too). Others seek to engage in a friendlier conversational exchange about whether Mormons profess the Nicene Creed. (We do not…

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Neuroscience Says Evil is “Over”: Not So Fast…

…ion or function of the brain, it must not be real. The article points to a number of ways neuropsychology has been overinterpreted and oversold. Rosenbaum addresses the fetishizing of fMRI images, the ideology that conflates causation and correlation, and the shifting semantics — evil recast as “non-empathy” by one esteemed psychologist (echoing, interestingly, the traditional Christian understanding of evil as a privation). But it’s the image of…

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The New Age Fantasy of a Celtic Church that Revered Nature and the Divine Feminine Never Existed — So What?

…coast of Scotland. Iona is the veritable navel of Celtic Christianity. Rocky-shored with low green hills clustered in its small interior, the Isle of Iona was where the Irish Abbot St. Columba established his monastery in the sixth-century, a community intended for monks who would produce illuminated manuscripts in their scriptorium by the rhythm of the daily liturgy, living a life of prayer and contemplation before being buried beneath the numer…

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“Pregnancy is Not a Disease”: Birth of an Anti-Contraception Rallying Cry

…sm would try to trick us into believing that pregnancy is dangerous and yucky, best avoided. But no! We will not be ashamed. Pregnancy (a condition that only biologically-female people undergo) is not a disease (and diseases are bad). Wow. That so nearly cancels out to “Women are good.” Hooray! In this respect, the phrase “Pregnancy is not a disease” also fits well with a certain spirit of the times. Now, let me say here that I know plenty of wome…

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Picasso’s Sacred Monster Eats Chicago: A Mystery Solved?

…tive interpretation. Multiply ambiguous, it is a strange concoction of any number of animal and human forms, as well as a sphinx; itself a hybrid monster. Moreover, the Chicago Picasso intimates both the Egyptian and Greek sphinxes—an amalgam of cultural styles. An ambiguous, almost inscrutable object, it is an enigmatic icon and the icon of an enigma; its very presence confronts the populace with a riddle. The riddle is not simply what the Chicag…

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Ex-Gay Conversion Therapy: Choosing Religion Over Sex

…ving those relationships may be a good and worthy goal, and I spoke with a number of ex-gay men who spoke of the gifts that pursuing their heterosexual marital relationships gave. But this is not a change in sexual orientation; it is making one particular heterosexual relationship work. Homo-Intimacy The other element in Wyler’s story, one that is common in many ex-gay change narratives, is the centrality of male intimacy in the process of orienta…

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Change v. Change at NPR

…ebate but it is between the mental health establishment and a much smaller number of traditionally minded religious therapists. However, even if Spiegel had correctly identified the nature and participants in the debate, she still would not have gotten it quite right. To his credit, Schumacher-Matos does a better job when he reviews material given to him by Spiegel and her editor Anne Gudenkauf. Among other things, Schumacher-Matos read an article…

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Protesters in Washington DC, the day before the January 6 insurrection, wrapped in American flags blow shofars.

Netanyahu’s Genocidal Religious Rhetoric isn’t Just an Appeal to the Israeli Right — He Has Another Constituency in Mind

…of barbarism… May God Bless Israel.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMVs7akyMh0 The widespread assumption that Netanyahu’s religious rhetoric is a cynical appeal to his right-wing base isn’t incorrect, but it isn’t the only explanation—and it may not even be the primary one. The success of his military campaign (and perhaps his political future), depends on Netanyahu framing the conflict (and Israel’s place in it) in such a way that it garners po…

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Why Don’t White People Show Up For Juneteenth The Way They Showed Up For George Floyd?

…but I refrained from intruding into their Juneteenth experience. The small number of White individuals, couples, and families often looked uncomfortable navigating the happy, jubilant, celebratory mass of Black bodies regaled in red, black, green, and gold. Was this a South Carolina anomaly? I doubt it. According to one poll, 51% of Americans had no plan to celebrate (and more than half of those respondents declared that “they would not take part…

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55% of Utah Mormons Believe LGBT People can “Change”

…studied and understood. Any doctrine that would be used to exclude a good number of the earth’s people from full equality before the law and God should be very carefully examined. When it comes to gay issues, most Mormons have only the muddiest understanding of what life is like for gay people or about the doctrinal reasons their LDS leaders say and do the things they do. In fact, most Mormons have only the muddiest understanding about what their…

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