Osama and Orientalism: Where Islamophobes Meet Al-Qaeda
What do critics of Islam have in common with bin Laden? They both have a reductive, prescriptive understanding of religion and they use it to assert superiority over others.
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The Great Secret of Constitutional Law: Why Proposition 8 Will (and perhaps should) Be Upheld
“The Constitution is not what the Court says it is. Rather it is what the people…eventually allow the Court to say it is.” A careful read of the history of great advances in American freedom reveals that high court decisions like Brown v. Board of Ed. actually relied both on the clarity of the argument and the perception that the nation was ready.
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Sacred&Profane: ARIS Survey Gets ‘Religion’, Misses Boat
Can a survey capture the true nature of the sacred in America? What if the Super Bowl, kinky sex, science, Elvis, Viagra, and the iPhone hold the keys to understanding the sacred and its role in the lives of millions of Americans as they reckon with suffering and ecstasy, reproduction and aging, family and conflict, health and death?
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Op-Ed: The Real Muslims?
We all know by now that there are some who would like to claim the term “Christian” for their own particular brand of belief. Is there an analogy to this in the contemporary North American Muslim community?
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RDPulpit: Excommunicating the Victims
While the family of a 9-year-old incest victim’s abortion is excommunicated, the perpetrator never even made it to the ecclesial radar screen. Let this case signal the end of any credible claim to authority of bishops and the dawn of a new era when local communities determine their own members. I daresay the world will be a safer, kinder place.
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Twitter of Faith: Microblogging the Divine
Religious groups are discovering that Twitter can help to build a portable church, where believers can obey the timeworn injunction to “pray without ceasing”—or is it “tweet without ceasing”?
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Just Call Me Marie: When Women Become Priests
Marie Bouclin was excommunicated, or rather “self-excommunicated,” as the Catholic church puts it, for becoming a priest. But banishment from the church has not stopped her from living her vocation.
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Jewish State, Islamic State: All States are Religious
All nations contribute to the management and definition of religion so it’s neither necessary, nor possible, to identify any state as definitively “religious” or “secular.” To choose is largely political.
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Is Obama Satan’s Warm-up Act?
The co-authors of the eschatological Left Behind series appeared on the Rachel Maddow show to offer a variation on the theory that Obama may be the Antichrist.
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Darwin in Rome: Burden of Diversity, Mystery of Time
Two current exhibits in Rome hint at the disturbing subtext of Darwin’s theories and the root of religious opposition to them.
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