Layoffs on the Religious Right
RD News Round-Up: November 17, 2008: New surveys on the faith vote; Rev. Moon’s plans for the UN; Jews to Mormons: lay off the dead; plus Jill Stanek, Tom Minnery and Joel Hunter
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Doubting Obama: A Response to Harper’s and Simon Critchley
Is authentic religious commitment incompatible with critical thinking, reason, or compromise, as philosopher Simon Critchley seems to imply in a recent essay on Obama? Or is our challenge to refuse the false oppositions between total transformation and conflict, or politics and piety?
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Keeping God Out of Science Class in an Obama Administration
A generation after the infamous Scopes Trial, a biology teacher, Susan Epperson, went to court and won the right to teach evolution theory. Even the election of a new, more science-friendly administration, however, does not ensure that the Bible will no longer be used as a science textbook.
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The “Guilty” AIDS Sufferers
According to Zen, ignorance is the grand-daddy of suffering. That some AIDS victims are “innocent” and some not is not only ignorant, but the antithesis of compassion.
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Can Islam Save The Economy?
In the midst of a global financial crisis one sector has yet to suffer the fate of the rest. Islamic finance, or Sharia-compliant banking, offers strict moral guidelines for dealing with money. Trading debt and risky speculation are off-limits, as is investment in immoral enterprises like gambling, prostitution, and war profiteering. It might be time to get the muftis on the phone.
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Argue-by-Number: A Suggestion for the Church
In which our columnist suggests that the Church adopt a scheme of numbering to refer to its various arguments against homosexuality. It would be more efficient, certainly, given that these arguments are continually invoked. But why the incessant repetition?
Read MoreThe President as Sovereign Leader
Though it may be unhelpful to draw comparisons between the administration and fascist regimes, it’s important to recognize the “family resemblances” in their political reasoning and self-conception.
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The Kids are Religious Right: Punk Rock & Pro-Life
Who is that tattooed, pierced kid with the pink hair and the “You Will Not Mock Our God” T-shirt? How confusion about evangelicalism has obscured the Catholic influences of pro-life youth.
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John McCain: No God But Country
The president’s faith, according to John McCain, is “[the] number one issue.” Having scoured the public record, the author reports back with a startling proposal: John McCain may not believe in God.
Read MoreRDPulpit: The Intolerance of Tolerance Movements
For a good feminist “lesbian” must always trump “gay” in the alphabet soup of acceptance and tolerance.
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