The “Feminized” Jesus
Lieutenant General William G. “Jerry” Boykin, now with the Family Research Council, wants to be like the Jesus who was a “man’s man,” who had “big, bulging biceps” and “smelled bad.” Nothing is stopping...
Tagged: christianity
The End of Absolute Sexual Morality
My friend Darwin observes: When trying to make-nice to conservatives, proponents of “same sex marriage” tend to emphasize it as a way of enshrining commitment and sexual morality. However, while this tends to suggest...
The Development of Sex, Marriage, and Nature in Christian Thought
“To have intercourse without intending children is to violate nature, which we must take as our teacher.” – Clement of Alexandria Throughout many traditions of Christian thought, theologians have taken nature, by which they’ve...
Talk radio, taxes, and the Bible
~by M.A. Conor P. Williams, in Conservatism Isn’t Radical—It’s “Modular”, argues that there is a certain amount of mental jiu-jitsu involved in shifting frameworks from argument to argument. An interesting test of this very case...
Fantasy and the Anglosphere
When I published my fantasy piece in the Atlantic it was linked (reproduced?) by Richard Dawkins’ site and a number of the atheists in the commentariat had scathing things to say about fantasy literature....
Rick Perry’s Christian America
~by Tom Van Dyke Well, the problem isn’t perhaps-GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry attending a semi-political prayer meeting. This stuff happens all the time. [His playing Pontifex Maximus for it and the potential political...
Living According to a Story
By Kyle Cupp I was born to a Buddhist father and a somewhat lapsed Catholic mother, so you could say I had a divergent and confusing theological upbringing. Essentially I heard two different stories...
While Standing On One Foot
Via Joe Carter, a series of one-sentence summaries of the Bible from various “scholars and pastors.” None of them take a path similar to Rabbi Hillel’s famous line — “What is hateful to you,...
Beck and Obama’s radically different theologies
[updated] It is perhaps a little ironic that Beck is invoking theology so often and especially in order to demonize Obama further. Ironic because conservative and evangelical Christians probably have more in common theologically...
Anne Rice quits Christianity
[updated] Anne Rice offers up some bizarre reasoning for quitting her faith: I quit being a Christian. I’m out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist....
conservatives as self-parodies
This interview with Andy Schlafly [below] of conservapedia.com is hard to watch. It’s almost embarrassing. I think Colbert is at his best for most of the exchange, and the zinger about creating his own reality...
Short, controversial post: War on Christmas edition
Local schools should be allowed to decide whether or not to put on Christmas pageants that include the birth of Jesus Christ, the three wisemen, Mary, Joseph, and the whole nativity event.
The War on Pluralism Christmas
(cross-posted from the United States of Jamerica) This is a little ridiculous (via Dara’s Google Reader feed): Boss Creations, a new holiday decor company, has introduced the new “CHRIST-mas” Tree, featuring the unique trait...
The “Practical Christianity” of the Welfare State
Via First Things, The Acton Institute’s PowerBlog discusses the Christian origins of the welfare state: The church helped to bring about the welfare state in two ways. First, the Church embodied the idea of...
The Manhattan Declaration
Well, this is the trajectory of the modern Christian right. Its leaders have signed this declaration, further entwining religion and politics, and further entrenching the culture wars in the useless “us against them” language...
Modernity, Christianity and Islam
I linked to this earlier, but amateur history buffs will find Cato Unbound’s discussion on the origins of modernity pretty fascinating. The central point of contention is the so-called “first cause” of modernity –...
Our Sins
Christ’s crucifixion was a sort of torture, and His death on the cross a symbol of the greater spiritual death and torment He suffered on our behalf…
A (mostly) Musical Maundy Thursday Round-up
A few songs and some links to usher in the Easter Triduum….
Progressive Traditionalism?
I read Leviticus last year while studying Judaism and I noticed exactly the same thing Ron Beasley is on to in this post. The problem with fundamentalism is it can’t really operate in the...
