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   Tolerating James Dobson Bob Smietana, giving Dobson the benefit of the doubt, finds a moral in L'Affaire SpongeBob. [ Continue reading: ] They're Into Masochism, Too Here's a lengthy diatribe on what self-serving hypocrites many evangelicals are -- published in Christianity Today's Books & Culture.... [ Continue reading: ] Can You Love the Theocon but Hate Theocracy? "Do you know what happened in the United States? They accused me of being a theocon—I don't know what that means..." Rocco Buttiglione, the Italian politician recently deemed unqualified to be a European Commissioner because he allgedly suggested homosexuality is... [ Continue reading: ] Sex & Other People's Gods Sharlet: Years ago I interviewed Wendy Doniger, the U Chicago scholar of mythology. At the time, she was working on a cross-cultural study of getting screwed, literally and figuratively -- what happens when you go to bed with a guy... [ Continue reading: ] Dobson's Creek Spongebob has been pressed into the service of a "homosexual agenda" and Dr. James Dobson has MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on the ropes, about to go the way of Dan Rather. If you believe either of these claims, we have some... [ Continue reading: ]  Maple Sugar Me, Baby More naughty bunny news: Slate's Dana Stevens interviews (halfway through her column) a spokeswoman for "Postcards from Buster," the PBS kid's cartoon show which the new education secretary, Margaret Spellings, has denounced because one episode includes a character with two... [ Continue reading: ]  Get Godly, Get Paid Who says moral values don't pay? Yet another conservative columnist has been outed as having received undisclosed payments from a government program he fluffed in his column. Mike McManus, whose column appears in around 50 newspapers, received $10,000 for "consulting"... [ Continue reading: ] Scientology Stories Amid the overabundance of articles on religion and the tsunami -- who has an interpretation of the tragedy as God's will; who's taking advantage; who's purely offering help -- Peter S. Goodman of The Washington Post narrows his focus to... [ Continue reading: ] Duke ISO Pugilist Kerry Duke, dean of Tennessee Bible College, has apparently intimidated his neighbors at Tennessee State University out of hosting a free course on Islam. After hearing of the planned course -- which, according to the would-have-been professor, wasn't proselytization but... [ Continue reading: ] Faith-Based Investment Bankers? The South Florida Business Journal reports, without comment, that Jeb Bush has named several insurance, investment and business executives as advisors to the state's faith-based initiatives program. The Revealer's no M.B.A., but it seems worthwhile to ask what this means.... [ Continue reading: ] Every Woman Loves a Crusader Wild At Heart -- the new book and Christian men's movement, not David Lynch's dark and violent love story -- takes off in Britain, where churches are reportedly recommending it to their flocks. The Times' Ruth Gledhill does better than... [ Continue reading: ] Jerry Understands Jerry Springer sympathizes with the Christians who protested the BBC's recent airing of Jerry Springer: The Opera, and said he wouldn't have written it himself as "'I don't believe in making fun of other religions.'"... [ Continue reading: ]  Guantanamo Thong Song The Bush administration recommends sexual abstinence for singles -- unless, of course, you're a Guantanamo prisoner. In that case, official policy involves thongs, body fluids, and blue balls. Paisley Dodds of AP has acquired a draft of a classified document... [ Continue reading: ] My Kitty, My Lord A reporter's work on the crime beat and on her church newsletter collide over a testimony called "My Kitty." Faith gets run over. [ Continue reading: ] It's a Not A Cult, Silly -- It's a Coven. Speaking at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York, The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh, one of the best investigative journalists at work, says the U.S. government "has been taken over basically by a cult." Hersh means the "eight or nine neo-conservatives" in charge at the White House and the Pentagon. Of course, scholars frown on the term "cult" these days. The preferred language is "new religious movement." Audio and transcript of Hersh's remarks at Democracy Now. [ Continue reading: ] The Well-Concealed Rub James Dobson issues a press release to counter the SpongeBob fiasco, which he claims was reported all out of context, and to ask his followers to write five journalists or commentators who mocked Dobson. In fact, the release states, what... [ Continue reading: ] Adventist Ashes Get Catholic Burial After a Catholic church in Boulder, Colorado publicized its practice of holding religious burials of the ashes of aborted fetuses, an Adventist hospital has also raised objections after hearing that the ashes of miscarried and stillborn fetuses were being similarly... [ Continue reading: ] One DOMA Challenge Left After a judge dismissed lawsuits brought by three gay couples in Florida, and the couples decided not to risk appealing to the Supreme Court in case the court set a precedent by rejecting the case, there is only one lawsuit... [ Continue reading: ] Auschwitz Anniversary Today marks the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the main center of the Nazi's "Final Solution," with survivors meeting for remembrance ceremonies with world leaders, who warned of the growing number of anti-Semitic incidents in Europe. Last week,... [ Continue reading: ] You Forgot Context Though she's been called "French" for it, Peggy Noonan doesn't regret her critique of Bush's "God-drenched" address, and adds these thoughts: words have meanings that last beyond romantic sentiment; history is quite big enough right now without more overreaching ambition;... [ Continue reading: ] Blessed Be the Fruit Christian conservative Allan Carlson, president of a think tank called the Howard Center, proposes lower insurance rates for married couples with children. Carlson says that "children-rich" families with a working father and a homemaker mom enjoy better health. Carlson also... [ Continue reading: ]  They Will Be Your Doctors When You're Old Kansas' State Board of Education is holding a public hearing this Saturday on the proposed statewide science standards which include a redefinition of the word "science" intended to remove bias towards "naturalistic" (non-theistic) belief systems. Pat Hayes, author of Red... [ Continue reading: ] He's So Unusual Constitutional "originalist" U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (of "secularism led to the Holocaust" fame) yesterday scolded his fellow judges for looking to "abstractions" or "judicial tests" rather than the pure text of the Constitution when deciding religious cases. But... [ Continue reading: ] Satirist Fined Over Pope's Honor A Warsaw court has fined Jerzy Urban, editor of the Polish newspaper Nie (No), $6,500 for writing a satirical article published in 2002, that ridiculed the pope on the eve of his visit to his native country.... [ Continue reading: ] Zondervan Eats Lunch with the Cool Kids Rolling Stone belatedly decides to accept the new kid in Young-n-hiptown after all of RS's friends already have. New kid still humbly "thrilled."... [ Continue reading: ] Russia Remembers Auschwitz "'Today is a test,'" said Russia's chief rabbi Berl Lazar. "'People are trying to test how society will react 60 years later.'" While the rest of the world observes the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, 20 Russian nationalist... [ Continue reading: ] Death of a Heretic In Memoriam: Gary Webb, the Pulitzer-winning journalist who broke the story of the CIA-Contra-crack epidemic connection and paid for it with his career. Why does The Revealer care? Because Webb's story is about the religion of journalism, its grand inquisitors,... [ Continue reading: ] Vermont is So Bunny Bush's new education secretary, Margaret Spellings, brings a fresh tone to Washington after outgoing secretary Rod Paige disgraced himself by buying off a hack journalist to spin his initiatives. There'll be no covert culture war for Spellings -- she's taking... [ Continue reading: ] Members Only Which should take precedence -- religious freedom or protection from discrimination? The Chronicle of Higher Education hosts an open, online colloquy with David A. French, president of the conservative Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, on why student groups that exclude gays and lesbians should be eligible for official funding. Tell French what you think. But first, read Burton Bollag's report on the fight, "Choosing Their Flock." [ Continue reading: ] Oedipus Hex Eight-year-old Sholom Auslander's father is an abusive bastard, but young Sholom is a first-rate yeshiva boy -- smart enough to know that his sins will rack up his father's account, and, if he's lucky, force Hashem to kill his dad. What's a nice Jewish boy to do? Steal, lie, "touch myself," and chant "shit, fuck, and ass a dozen times each" before bedtime. Does it work? Go to "Act III," "Oedipus Hex," of last week's This American Life to find out. A grown-up Auslander -- no rabbi -- tells the tale beginning at minute 38 of the program. [ Continue reading: ]  Generation Squared Jeff Sharlet: Don't drink, don't smoke, what do you do? Write a book that claims the new cool kids are just as squeaky clean. [ Continue reading: ] God's Convenient Politics Lucky for Democrats, Jim Wallis is able to explain God's politics, which are a curiously good fit to the current Democratic identity crisis: God's "an economic progressive and family-values conservative," just like the black, Latino, Catholic and working-class voters Dems... [ Continue reading: ] The A-Team What kind of name for a band of supervillians, or even heroes, is "The Arlington Group"? More dowdy than terrifying. But then, we didn't get their calmly-worded letter of disappointment. Bush did. The coalition of Christian conservatives, which includes James... [ Continue reading: ] Ashland U. Makes Rainbow Bracelet of Historical Ties Ohio's Ashland University, which announced last fall that it would restrict new faculty hires to Jews and Christians, has abandoned the policy in favor of requiring faculty members to support the university's mission statement, which includes a commitment to Judeo-Christian... [ Continue reading: ] UCC Evangelizes SpongeBob Jesus wouldn't turn away SpongeBob Squarepants, and neither does the UCC. Rev. John H. Thomas, general minister and president of the United Church of Christ, gave warm welcome to SpongeBob yesterday -- as well to as Barney, Big Bird, Clifford,... [ Continue reading: ] Survival of the Fittest How come capitalist Americans, with their love of social Darwinism, and faith in "'survival of the fittest' free-market ideology," don't accept evolution as well? Stephen Peplow, on Peace, Earth and Justice News considers this underappreciated irony.... [ Continue reading: ] Just Another Word For Everything Left to Lose David Domke: In his second-term inaugural address on Thursday, George W. Bush used the words freedom or liberty, in some form, 49 times. Say this for the president: He can hammer home a message. Freedom. Liberty. God. Bush’s emphases on these, so consistently highlighted in his public communications over the past four years, both lay bare and obscure underlying truths about the administration... [ Continue reading: ]  Don't Play with Sri Lanka Evangelical relief workers have reached Sri Lanka, which has been a hotbed of religious contention since long before the tsunami. Christian missionaries there claim persecution at the hands of the Buddhist majority, citing the more than 100 churches which have... [ Continue reading: ] Holocaust Denial in Slovakia Religion and Society points to an AP report on a proposal from Slovakia's Justice Ministry to decriminalize Holocaust denial by repealing a 2001 law. The country's Jewish community protested the proposal last Friday, imploring legislators "'not to help legalize neo-Nazi... [ Continue reading: ] I.D. Update The evolution debate goes on, with The New York Times and The Washington Post both printing anti-"Intelligent Design" editorials in the past two days (The Times arguing that "If evolution is derided as 'only a theory,' intelligent design needs to... [ Continue reading: ] Alberta What's On Your Mind? In Alberta, one of five provinces left in Canada that has not legalized same-sex marriage, 500 protesters gathered outside the legislature to pray for God's intercession in keeping the unions illegal.... [ Continue reading: ] Washington Times Plans Minstrel Show The Washington Times wins the cultural sensitivity award with Richard S. Ehrlich's report on "superstitious Thailand," where Thais are "spooked" by the spirits of tsunami victims, refuse to eat fish because of angry sea creatures eating human remains, and probably... [ Continue reading: ] Ergo, the Divorce Rate Public Agenda, a non-profit public opinion research organization, has released the results of a new survey and finds that Americans are increasingly curmudgeonly, stubborn old mules who won't compromise on anything. Well, not anything, but anything that seems closely tied... [ Continue reading: ] NARAL-Baiting Yesterday, on the day after the 32nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Boulder's Sacred Heart of Mary Roman Catholic Church invited the press to a mass burial of the ashes of 300-500 fetuses which had been aborted at a nearby... [ Continue reading: ]  Hey, Baby, You Wanna Check Out My Sword? Reuters reports on the Christian "warrior" movement, inspired by author John Eldredge's bestselling Wild At Heart and descended from poet Robert Bly's Iron John movement. Some members commission replicas of the sword wielded by Mel Gibson as William Wallace in... [ Continue reading: ] Emerge, Submerge, Repeat Sharlet: John Leland, author of Hip: The History, retreading the oft-told story of Jay Bakker, punk-rock-son-of-a-preacher-man? I was about to trash this piece of reporting-without-ideas when I recalled a young guy I met a little while ago, whom I'll call Raf. [ Continue reading: ]  Rank Something, Anyway Wouldn't you know -- Richard Land is a man of the people. Or so he told NPR's Terry Gross when she asked why he supported the war in Iraq when so many other religious leaders did not. Maybe, said Land,... [ Continue reading: ] An Open Letter to President Bush Palestinian Christians have been rubbing shoulders with each other and with other religions for centuries. We want to do so for centuries more. by Prof. Abe W. Ata: Dear President Bush, Re. Palestinian Christians: tormented, betrayed, stereotyped, persecuted, forcibly... [ Continue reading: ] Open Letters Leaders of Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant and Evangelical churches, including the leadership of the National Council of Churches, have taken out a full-page ad in The New York Times, urging President Bush to use his power to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,... [ Continue reading: ] Peggy Noonan, Here On Earth Peggy Noonan, former speechwriter to both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, takes a swipe a Junior's style. The music was "lame": "modern megachurch hymms" that sounded like the boring middle of a children's film. But worse was the address... [ Continue reading: ] Acehnese Amputees Acehnese Muslim tsunami survivors suffering from gangrene are reluctant to submit to amputations, fearing a pre-tsunami perception that amputees are beggars, and also that being "physically incomplete" may prevent Muslims from entering paradise. A local Iman told The Telegraph he... [ Continue reading: ] Episcopal Church Apologizes The U.S. House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church apologized for the hurt it caused the Anglican Communion by "certain actions," unspoken but clearly the consecration of the openly gay bishop, the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson. The apology was requested... [ Continue reading: ] One Step Forward... Catholic bishops in Spain have recanted on their statement this Tuesday, which allowed that condoms are useful in preventing the spread of AIDS, instead returning to the Vatican stance that condom use promotes immoral sexual conduct. No bishops' conference has... [ Continue reading: ]  The Capitalist Spirit Jeff Sharlet: I first met Bhakti Sondra Shaye, née Shaivitz, B.A., M.A., J.D., guide, teacher, and adept member of the Great White Universal Brotherhood and Sisterhood of Light, ritual master in the High Council of Gor, universal Kabbalist, Reiki master, and metaphysician, at the New Life Expo at the Hotel New Yorker this past October. The gathering bills itself as “America’s Largest Mind, Body, Spirit Expo,” four floors of alternative spiritual options. Vendors bark discount rates; “consumers” haggle over the tools of their salvation. In New York, the hidden economy of New Age mysticism—elsewhere marked by disingenuous disdain for commerce—is laid bare with pride... [ Continue reading: ] Talking Heads Live Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, and Rev. Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners and author of God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It, talk with NPR's... [ Continue reading: ] Reclaiming the Swastika British Hindus hope to reclaim the swastika -- a good luck charm and the second-most sacred Hindu symbol -- from its Nazi associations with public awareness workshops and a lobby effort to prevent a proposed Europe-wide ban on the symbol.... [ Continue reading: ] Because Cleveland Rocks... The Southern Baptist Convention has chosen the largely Catholic city of Cleveland as its "Strategic Focus City" for the U.S. in 2006-2007, and Vancouver for its Canadian outreach program reports David Briggs of The Plain Dealer. Thousands of volunteers will... [ Continue reading: ] God-Talk on I-Day Revealer contributors David Domke (author of God Willing? Political Fundamentalism in the White House, the "War on Terror," and the Echoing Press) and Kevin Coe predict the tenor of Bush's inaugural address this afternoon. He will talk about God, as... [ Continue reading: ] Clifford the Big Gay Plot Could James Dobson be heading back to the fringe? His organization, Focus on the Family and another Christian conservative group, the American Family Association, are targeting the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants, as well as Barney the Dinosaur, Arthur, Dora the... [ Continue reading: ] Godhra Report India's Election Commission has warned politicians that strict action will be taken against those exploiting religion during their election campaigns. The warning comes after the recent release of the Justice UC Banerjee report absolving Muslims of involvement in the Godhra... [ Continue reading: ]  Commercial Censorship Rolling Stone has rejected a pre-scheduled ad for an updated, youth-targeted Bible, published by the country's largest Bible publisher, Zondervan. The magazine cited an unwritten policy against religious messages in advertisements, and objected to the advertising campaign's use of the... [ Continue reading: ] Children of God "Dropping Like Flies" "'It's a war now between ourselves and our parents. This is the cream of the crop coming back to get them,'" said John La Mattery, a former member of the loosely Christian-based Children of God sect (renamed Family International). Two... [ Continue reading: ] Crying Holy War Joe Malinconico of The Star-Ledger relays the most detailed description yet given by New Jersey authorities about last week's murder of a family of Egyptian Coptic Christians in Jersey City, whose funeral yesterday errupted into a brawl between Christian mourners... [ Continue reading: ] Ghana Chosen Ghanaian Bishop Frank Love, founder of the Prince of Peace Mission, announced that he had a revelation that Ghana had been chosen as "'a Gentile Nation to promote the Kingdom of God after which Israel will be saved.'" Bishop Love's... [ Continue reading: ] Scopes' Legacy of Silence "Intelligent Design" is not the child of the Christian right politicization in the 1980s, but rather the product of 80 years of quiet fundamental- ist campaigns against evolution and pressure on textbook makers and schools. Likewise, argues freethinker extraordinaire Susan... [ Continue reading: ] Teenagers and Church Music Parents might not understand, but their kids do. Dr. Barbara J. Resch, the coordinator of Music Education at Indiana University/Purdue University, publishes a study on "Teenager's Perceptions of Church Music," and finds that they're not necessarily drawn to "stylistically derivative"... [ Continue reading: ] Only Campaign Promises Can Break Your Heart Have the "moral values" voters been had? Social conservatives are calling the White House in droves to complain about Bush's comments to The Washington Post last weekend, stating that he didn't intend to lobby the Senate to pass an amendment... [ Continue reading: ] Reading God's Brothel in Salt Lake City Democratic Utah State Senator Ed Allen distributed 104 copies of the book, God's Brothel, for his fellow legislators to read on the long bus ride to hear the governor's State of the State address Tuesday. Allen, who mentioned the migration... [ Continue reading: ] Aceh Gets the Words Who isn't trying to help the victims in the tsunami-ravaged province of Aceh to find the way? Though WorldHelp, the Virginia-based evangelical group that had planned to adopt 300 Aceh tsunami orphans and raise them in a Christian home, has... [ Continue reading: ]  The Accidental Abductee Archbishop Basile Georges Casmoussa, the "much-loved" 66-year old head of the archdiocese who was kidnapped at gunpoint yesterday by Iraqi insurgents in the crime-filled northern city of Mosul, was released today without the payment of any ransom. Speaking on Vatican... [ Continue reading: ] T.G.I.B. Right-wing missionaries to the extremely powerful (elected or appointed), the Christian group Faith and Action has moved beyond its role of gifting senators and congressmen with stone Ten Commandments tablets and has announced its plans to begin Thursday's inauguration ceremonies... [ Continue reading: ]  Michael Murphy and the Raiders of the Lost Ark Jana Prikryl: It was the religion that made them do it -- that was the immediate liberal response to last November’s election. The country’s secular minority suddenly went into crisis mode, certain that it shared no common language with the vast majority of church-going Americans. Granted, that first impression was corrected within a few weeks of the election. Both conservatives and liberals eventually agreed that 22% of Americans (who claimed in exit polls that “moral values” were the election’s top issue) do not a moral majority make. But that has been scant comfort for many secular liberals, who long believed that large swathes of the country were inhabited by strange, religious creatures. Yet American culture has never been so simple or monolithic. In a weird way, the most hopeful sign that secular and religious Americans do share a common language is the bizarre and phenomenally successful Left Behind series. [ Continue reading: ]  Real Live Revealer Today! Revealer contributor Jesse Sunenblick talks live with Robert Howard and Bill Kirkpatrick, filling in for Jean Feraca on Wisconsin Public Radio's Here on Earth, about how the December 26th tsunami might affect our religious and philosophical views today. Listen... [ Continue reading: ]  A Day Off The Revealer is taking a long weekend for its staff to attend to personal business. We'll be back after the holiday, on Tuesday.... [ Continue reading: ] Stickerless Science U.S. Federal Judge Clarence Cooper has dealt a strong blow to the Intelligent Design movement by ruling that a Georgia school district must remove the stickers it had placed in science textbooks telling students that evolution is an unproven theory,... [ Continue reading: ]  Unbelieve! "Village atheists are as numerous, and as shrill, as they’ve ever been, for the simple reason that the successive revolutions in thought that have furthered their cause—the Enlightenment and Darwinism—have been popular busts." Chris Lehmann on the tedium of dogmatic atheism. [ Continue reading: ] Spare the Rod, or Do Unto Others? The Boston Globe reports on an advertisement seen in Home School Digest for "The Rod," a $5 whipping stick advertised alongside a biblical passage encouraging parents not to spare the "rod of correction." A Lutheran home-schooling parent, Susan Lawrence, was... [ Continue reading: ] It's Okay When They Say It -- Pt. 2 CW Check: When's it okay to mistake "evangelist" for "evangelical", and when is it okay to mock a person's argument as faith-based, read: irrational and shortsighted? Apparently when you're a believer using the terms ironically to argue that science is... [ Continue reading: ] FBO Watchdogs A district court ruled that a prison mentoring program in Arizona, MentorKids USA, was illegally using federal funds to promote Christianity to the children of incarcerated parents. The challenge to the program and the Department of Health and Human Services... [ Continue reading: ] The Religiously Illiterate Faithful Professor Steve Prothero, author of American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon, finds the rub about those godless Europeans: they may be four times less inclined to believe in miracles, biblical inerrancy and hell, they know... [ Continue reading: ] Pray for Tsunami Evangelism It's a busy week for the Presidential Prayer Team, which forwards President Bush's prayer requests for January 13, 2005. The president would like you to pray for the safety of next week's inaugural celebration guests; for the end of resistance... [ Continue reading: ] BBC Blasphemy Trevor Phillips, chairman of Britain's Commission for Racial Equality, has called for parliament to scrap antiquated blasphemy laws that punish "attacks on Christianity" with life imprisonment, but does not punish similar "attacks" on other faiths. Phillips, whose commission also strongly... [ Continue reading: ] Reality Theory Seems some conspiracy theories turn out to be true. Last week the Indonesian Embassy tried to quell rumors among Singapore's Muslim population that Christian missionaries were about to adopt 300 tsunami orphans from the conflicted region of Aceh, and raise... [ Continue reading: ] Houston Bible Protests Christians protested outside a county courthouse in Houston after a Bible was removed from a monument owned by the Star of Hope mission but located next to the court's entrance. Demonstrators were upset that the mission removed the Bible so... [ Continue reading: ]  Irish Churches Conference "'We live in a post-Christian society and we do not have the power any more. The [Christian] Church is returning to the place it was in its first 300 years, when it was vulnerable and on the edge of society.'"... [ Continue reading: ] On Which Hand? President Bush finally talks about his faith, sort of. In a meeting with reporters from the sympathetic Washington Times, Bush complained that his faith and approval of religion in the public square were misunderstood, and there was no reason to fear either. Why there's no reason to fear, we never learn [ Continue reading: ] It's OK When They Say It Sharlet: CNN may be global, but it sure sounds provincial this morning. I'm watching in the breakfast room of a Holiday Inn in Salida, Colorado, along with two young families and a couple of seniors. Next up: "A Buddhist monk"... [ Continue reading: ] God Beat Shop Talk "You don't upgrade and expand religion reporting -- or reporting of any subject -- by limiting access to the field. For many beats in any newsroom, a talented, enthusiastic reporter with little experience but with specialized academic training brings energy... [ Continue reading: ] "God-Fearing Thugs" Bite Dog We guess we should know better than to look for nuanced religion reporting in the excitable New York Daily News, but we were drawn in by their report of a 20-year old self-proclaimed Satanist, Daniel Romano, who was allegedly beaten... [ Continue reading: ] King of the Jews A modern-day Sanhedrin has convened in Old Jerusalem this week, duplicating the old religious tribunal which met during Israel's Second Temple period, and which hasn't authentically existed for 1,600 years. The new group, consisting of 71 Jewish scholars who named... [ Continue reading: ] Red-Hot Religion Scientists, philosophers, theologians and brain surgeons make up Oxford University's new Oxford Center for Science of the Mind, which is soon to begin a series of experiments on the nature of human consciousness and how religious beliefs manifest themselves in... [ Continue reading: ]  Prepping for Faith-Based Patients The Archives of Internal Medicine, a journal of the American Medical Association, has published a study on how physicians should respond when patients' religious beliefs come in conflict with the doctor's medical recommendations. The study's authors conducted in-depth interviews with... [ Continue reading: ] What's the Matter with Iraqi Women? Voting against one's own interests may be an international phenomenon, according to Hannah Allam of Knight Ridder Newspapers. Though women make up 55 percent of Iraq's population and are guaranteed 25 percent of the seats in the national assembly (grossly... [ Continue reading: ] Mmmm...Faith Mfaith, a free U.S. text messaging service sending daily Bible verses, has a little something for everyone, according to publisher Gary Brooks, who says, "'It doesn't matter who you are, everyone can relate to the Scriptures we send.'" Oh? Has... [ Continue reading: ] Bible Curriculum After a year's debate, a Michigan school district has decided not to allow an elective Bible class that would have been based on materials from the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools. Officials at Frankenmuth Public Schools said... [ Continue reading: ] It's the Gay Marriage, Stupid. Or is it? Yeah, it is. According to a number of reports, gay marriage is at the top of the Vatican's agenda for 2005, laid out by Pope John Paul II in his "state of the world address" yesterday. Other reports, however, downplayed the gay-marriage angle... [ Continue reading: ] Newdow Wars On Attorneys for President Bush have asked the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. to dismiss Michael Newdow's lawsuit attempting to bar official Christian prayers at the presidential inauguration, saying the lawsuit is a "recycled case" -- Newdow filed a similar... [ Continue reading: ]  Buy Pentecostal Stock Fundamentalism doesn't have to mean religious conflict and intolerance, "'But sometimes we get into cycles where [traditionalists can't get along], and we seem to be in one of those cycles right now.'" Professor Philip Jenkins talks with Laurie Goodstein for... [ Continue reading: ] Jesus Christ Goes to Washington, Blesses Newt's Couch In Newt Gingrich's new book, Winning the Future: A 21st Century Contract with America, the former House speaker has included an extra 19-page D.C. tour guide, "Walking Tour of God in Washington, D.C. " for anyone who, like him, is... [ Continue reading: ] Calicophobia What do we talk about when we talk about John Ashcroft's belief that calico cats are signs of the devil that must be removed from his path? In short, according to Terry Mattingly, ourselves, with a subtext explaining why we... [ Continue reading: ] Jerusalem Syndrome Scottish artist Nathan Coley has contributed a film short to a major Scottish exhibition on Jerusalem syndrome, a "travel psychosis" affecting up to 20 people annually, wherein tourists to the Holy City become convinced they are biblical characters and begin... [ Continue reading: ] Holocaust: The Metaphor Paul Spiegel, Germany's top Jewish leader and president of the Central Council of Jews, demanded that Catholic leader Cardinal Joachim Meisner take back the words of his sermon comparing abortion to the Holocaust. In addition to comparing abortion to the... [ Continue reading: ] Surge in Nonbelief The New York City Atheists, a branch of American Atheists, has had their membership quintuple -- from 25 to 125 -- since the election of George Bush, who, in the NYCA's own words, "'has been our greatest ally.'" Other nonreligious... [ Continue reading: ]  Underworld
 Interfaith Inspiration and the Jerry Springer Protests Britain's Evangelical Alliance draws on the example of the violent Sikh protests of a controversial play to encourage Christians not to "'stand by and let this happen.'" "This" would be the upcoming BBC broadcast of Jerry Springer -- The Opera,... [ Continue reading: ] And the Winners Are... The Memory Hole collects the first official details of the distribution of faith-based grants, which were given to the AP separated into state-by-state lists. The faith-based recipients include: The City of Phoenix, The Los Angeles Department of Labor, The Colorado... [ Continue reading: ] You Forgot Egypt... Several Jewish leaders have criticized the State Department's newly-released Report on Global Anti-Semitism for its light treatment of anti-Semitism in North America and the Middle East, and particularly, the severity of the phenomenon in Egypt.... [ Continue reading: ] Passport Redux The debate over including religious identification in Pakistani passports goes international, with The New York Times picking up on the fight. The debate, in brief: In October Pakistan issued new electronic passports that omitted the religion column introduced in the... [ Continue reading: ] Mississippi Returning Edgar Ray Killen, a 79-year old Baptist minister and former Klu Klux Klan leader known as "The Preacher," has been arrested and charged with killing three civil rights workers who were registering black voters during the 1964 "Freedom Summer." Killen,... [ Continue reading: ] Gallup Prayer CNN reports the results of a poll it conducted with USA Today and Gallup, and finds that Americans offered more prayers than cash to the victims of the tsunami at a rate of 75% of respondents claiming they offered prayers,... [ Continue reading: ]  Putting the Compassion in Compassionate Conservatism American Coprophagia catches House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's "choice words" on the tsunami, delivered Tuesday morning at the 109th Congressional Prayer Service: Matthew 7:21-27. "And everyone who listens to these words of mine, but does not act on them, will... [ Continue reading: ] No Logo A Sikh subway engineer in New York City has filed a federal civil lawsuit after being ordered to sew an MTA logo patch on his turban. Four Muslims are also suing the transit authority for making them wear scarves with... [ Continue reading: ] Report on Global Anti-Semitism The State Department has released the first annual report on global anti-Semitism following the October Global Anti-Semitism Review Act which mandated the study of 62 countries, focusing primarily on Europe. The report finds four major sources to the rise in... [ Continue reading: ] Aceh's Orphans The Indonesian Embassy has had to publically refute the claims of text messages circulating in Singapore, asking Muslim parents to adopt orphans from the tsunami-devastated Indonesian province of Aceh. The text messages claim that Christian missionaries want to adopt the... [ Continue reading: ] Inauguration Wars Pt. 2 The Christian Coalition has accused the Secret Service of religious discrimination and bigotry for writing a memo that bans crosses from Bush's inauguration parade. The Coalition, which has received a demonstration permit to remind Bush to appoint pro-life justices, complained... [ Continue reading: ] Inauguration Wars Pt. 1 Dr. Michael Newdow has refiled his suit to remove "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance and upped the ante, adding a second suit (with three other families) to try to prevent prayers at Bush's inauguration. Newdow wrote that the... [ Continue reading: ] Amazon Queen or Prince of Peace A proposed statue of Califia, the mythical Amazon queen and namesake for the state of California, seems a likely pit-stop for the culture warriors. The monument, to be erected in Turlock, California, has already inspired a few letters to the... [ Continue reading: ]  Freedom to Choose Motherhood? Judge Marilyn O'Connor of Rochester, NY, has ordered a second drug-addicted mother not to have any more children until she proves herself capable of caring for the seven she already has. Two of the women's children were born with cocaine... [ Continue reading: ] Pakistani Code Revised President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has signed a bill amending the criminal code of Pakistan to make honor killings a capital offense, as well as to help stop the misuse of the Blasphemy Law and Hudood Ordinance, which criminalizes consensual extramarital... [ Continue reading: ] Pay No Attention to the History of the Historic Monument Ten Commandments watch. Verdict: Yes! in Wisconsin. Means: Sell the land under the monument and fence it in with notices that "This is not a pipe public land." Bitter analogy made by opposition: Compare the "sham" sale to the Wizard... [ Continue reading: ] Open Letter to Gonzales 225 Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh leaders, organized by Church Folks for a Better America, have written an open letter to Alberto Gonzales to condemn the use of torture under any circumstances, and to embrace international laws regarding human... [ Continue reading: ] Westboro at Home Oh, there are only so many euphemisms you can use for "media-whore." Today, how about "the promiscuous attention-seekers" at Westboro Baptist Church, well, they're at it again. And this time at home in Topeka, Kansas, where they've organized a petition... [ Continue reading: ] Holy Sweepstakes! Think and Reason is offering a million dollars to anyone who can prove that God exists. Guidelines: Proof by "faith" is unacceptable; no secondhand miracles; no pictures or film; and no televangelists need apply. Website administrator Vashek Pokorny explained his... [ Continue reading: ] God Sez: 700 Club Stock Will Rise God has communicated with Pat Robertson again, and told him that judges on the Supreme Court will be removed quickly (read: get sick or die), and their successors will be stalwart activists fighting against "'the attacks on religious faith.'" God's... [ Continue reading: ] Welcome to the Patriot Act An Islamic civil rights group has accused the U.S. border patrol of religious profiling after American Muslims returning from a religious conference were stopped, searched, photographed and fingerprinted becase, as a spokeswoman for Homeland Security explained, the department had information... [ Continue reading: ]  "Where's Your Goddess Now?" Jason Pitzl-Waters, of the Wildhunt Blog, unearths a particularly distasteful reaction to the tsunami tragedy.... [ Continue reading: ] States' Rights, Towey-Style Just two days after the AP reported on the first-ever tally of faith-based federal funding -- over $1.17 billion in 2003 alone, including a number of grants to groups that don't consider themselves religious at all -- comes another AP... [ Continue reading: ] Generation Missionary Transfers to NYU The Rev. Louie Giglio, who is leading the Passion '05 conference this week, has counseled students at Christian colleges to consider serving God by transfering to secular schools in need of the Word. For example, according to Giglio, New York... [ Continue reading: ] The Missionary Generation It's time, apparently, for a new youth generation label, and Naomi Schaefer Riley's got it: The Missionary Generation. In her new book, God on the Quad, Riley tours 20 religious universities (focusing on six of the biggies: Brigham Young, Bob... [ Continue reading: ] God is not the Answer True love, animal feelings, bad vibrations... Scientists believe in a lot of things, apparently, but not God. In a survey of top scientists with public reputations that asked "What do you believe that you can't prove?" only one scientist said... [ Continue reading: ] Yet Another "Third Way" Secularists, ecumenicists, agnostics: Watch out for Jim Wallis, warns Elizabeth A. Castelli. The evangelical leader and would-be political savior of liberalism brings more than passion for the poor to a liberalism he says has lost its vision -- he also brings a set of definitions by which the religion he says liberals so desperately needs "morphs into what Wallis is really talking about: 'the religion,' that is, Christianity." And a narrowly-defined Christianity at that -- there's no room in Wallis' tent for the undeniable "vision" of conservatism. [ Continue reading: ] Roncalli Diaries The publication of diaries belonging to Angelo Roncalli (the future Pope John XXIII) have rekindled controversy about Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust, furnishing proof that he had opposed the return of Jewish children who'd been protected in Catholic convents... [ Continue reading: ]  Amoral Earth Jesse Sunenblick: In searching for a reason for the tsunami, The Times blamed an "amoral" earth: words that seemed less a reference to the human failure to prepare for the catastrophe, than an attempt to cast the discussion of the tsunami in non-religious language. A preemptive disclaimer that what insurance agencies term an "act of God," need not be evidence of divine will. [ Continue reading: ] It Worked for Edmund Gwenn The Dutch postal agency TPG has announced that it will send all anonymous letters to God to the Netherland's evangelical broadcasting company, EO, where employees will pray for the letter-writers. The decision came after Andre Rouvoet, the leader of Holland's... [ Continue reading: ] Faith-Based Status Quo? A number of agencies that received federal funding earmarked for faith-based organizations were surprised to find that the government considered them religious groups, as they don't see themselves that way. Reporters in Iowa, Georgia, Missouri and other states have found... [ Continue reading: ] The Orange Star "'We had to use the heaviest tools we had in order to shock the State of Israel. As someone said to me, we had to make people understand that this is a case of ethnic cleansing.'" Ronny Bakshi, a teacher... [ Continue reading: ] Susan Sontag's Legacy More than 400 artists and writers have signed a letter to publically support Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, the playwright whose controversial play, Dishonour, sparked riots among British Sikhs and led to threats of kidnapping or violence against Bhatti.... [ Continue reading: ] If You Scapegoat Them, They Will Come (Eventually) The sleeping giant -- err, make that mid-sized man; no, make it "herd of cats" -- responds to the sound of its name and decides to try to live up to its frightful reputation. Yes, the atheists are organizing. After... [ Continue reading: ] |
