God Wants You to Work Harder, and to Stop Complaining
So-called “workplace spirituality” teaches people that the anxieties associated with global capital are inevitable, even part of the natural order of things. Under the highly deregulated conditions...
View ArticleThe Bible is a Good Book, But God Didn’t Write It
“Christianity is not supposed to make you secure. Christianity is supposed to give you the courage to walk into an insecure world knowing that you’re not alone and to embrace the radical insecurity. If...
View ArticleMissing the Extra Point: The Real Cause of Tebow Fever
People are watching The Tebow Show because he’s a second-rate quarterback… and winning games, often against great odds while playing his best at the most opportune times. For a large segment of the...
View ArticleThe Religious Implications of Nudity
Embodiment is a theological issue of some currency. Sometimes it is treated as if it were a women’s issue, but we all share this—at times frightening—humanity. We only want those we trust most...
View ArticleJeffress is Both Right and Wrong on Religion & Politics
Jeffress thinks it’s fine to interrogate candidates’ religious beliefs. Indeed there may be times when it is legitimate to ask whether a candidate’s religious positions would have a direct impact on...
View Article“Split at the Root”: Adrienne Rich and (Religious) Identity
Rich’s approach to her religious identity was of a piece with her approach to every aspect of her identity. For Rich, any identity worth achieving involved struggle and resistance—be it national...
View ArticleCall Me Pesach
In Yiddish, Jews reacted to the stories wafting out of Holy Week churches with a mixture of fear and derision. The Christian savior was regularly referred to by playful nicknames like Yoizel, Getzel,...
View ArticleSex and the (Hipster) Church—Just a Gimmick?
It may have been the first time a bed was ever on stage at Gramercy Theater, a mid-sized performance venue on East 23rd Street in New York City. But the nine-piece band circled around, half of its...
View ArticleDid North Carolinians Vote Against their Own Beliefs?
Most voters didn’t understand how extreme the amendment before them was.
View ArticleKilling Love in North Carolina
A bump in the rocky road to marriage equality for gay and lesbian people.
View ArticleEvangelicals Struggle With the Role of Churches in Society
Some people think that evangelicals only do charity out of a selfish desire to convert non-believers. Others insist that evangelical faith-based organizations are secretly installing a Christian...
View ArticleA Neoconservative Jesus, Certified Kosher
After some perfunctory praise of the last three popes, Boteach gets down to his Glenn Beck-ish business: “The American Evangelical community has proven the most stalwart and reliable friend of Israel...
View Article“Profound Delight in Being”: Remembering John Hick
John Hick, a celebrated theologian and philosopher who died earlier this year, was drawn to issues that transcend any particular tradition—the question of evil, the meaning of suffering, life after...
View ArticleDear Gay Kid
An alternative to the depressing offerings of a gay-but-hating-it Christian blogger.
View ArticleApocalypse Now and Then: Our Global Death Wish
What ought we do about millennial thinking in our day? If the combined 1300 pages of these two books have taught me anything, it’s that we can’t make it just go away. There is something fascinating,...
View ArticleDecoding Rick Warren’s Appreciation for Chick-fil-A
When you call me “unbiblical,” “unnatural,” and say I’m bent on destroying society with my “sinful lifestyle” and then complain that you’re being judged unfairly because I call that “hate” and I call...
View ArticleQueer Suicide and the Malpractice of “Love”
Violence against queer people runs much deeper than physical bullying, verbal harassment, or even hate-crime murder. It is a violence that takes place at the level of the psyche, the soul—at the very...
View ArticleThe Evolution of Religion, According to Darwin
“Today we’d probably call Darwin something of a seeker. You might say he’s something of a proto-None.”
View ArticleChristian Founder of Online Dating Site Wants to Ease Gay Pain
He’ll start by “figuring out homosexuality.”
View ArticleSpiritual-Not-Religious or Just Lazy?
The folks most likely to be alienated by Daniel's book are, unsurprisingly, the seekers—those who call themselves SBNR, of course, but also those who want religious community, or at least want to want...
View ArticleGod Will Not Make You Straight: An Interview with GCN’s Justin Lee
“We really need to get rid of Ex-Gay groups. I would like to see Christians, en masse, abandon these groups, to recognize that they don’t work. If they want to help people be celibate because that’s...
View ArticleChristians v. Gays: The Damage Done
Christians (understood to mean here heterosexual activist traditionalists) have become identified with actively pursuing the denial of rights and benefits to others that they themselves enjoy. In other...
View ArticleAn Evangelical Intellectual Takes On Same-Sex Marriage, Grasps at Straw Men
Though Craig is correct that his argument is “simple,” he is wrong to believe that simplicity makes it good. Indeed, the suggestion that terms and concepts are immune to redefinition is simply......
View ArticleDoes End Time Belief Really Cause Climate Change Apathy?
When I conducted a focus group at this church, the end times seemed to be on everyone’s mind. When we talked about caring for the environment, “Craig” cautioned that it was important to draw the line...
View ArticlePro-Gay Christians Breaking Out
Prime Minister’s defense of pro-gay Christian conscience goes viral; new project encourages other Christians to make videos
View ArticleLGBT-Friendly Church is Not “Christian” Enough?
It's easier to argue about Jesus and whether he was fully human, fully divine, both or some mixture thereof, instead of doing the dirty work of feeding the poor, etc.
View ArticleWhy Republicans Don’t Think Obama Is Christian
Alex Theodoridis, a political scientist at the University of California, Merced, conducted a survey last fall...
View Article“What Kind of Islam Is That?”: Talking With Refugees From ISIS
“They believe in some strange religion, not Islam,” a Muslim refugee from the Iraq city...
View ArticleCountry Trumpkins
I watched Donald Trump’s speech the other night to a sweaty crowd in West Bend,...
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