Evangelicals and Politics II and III
Evangelicals and Politics (II): The Religious Right (Born 1979, Died 2000) by Greg Forster. See here. Evangelicals and Politics (III): The Way Forward by Greg Forster. See here. (Part I linked here.)
Crazy?
What’s So Crazy About an Arranged Marriage? by Maura Kelly. Nell Freudenberger’s new novel, The Newlyweds, takes as its subject what the book jacket describes as “an arranged marriage for the twenty-first century.” It’s one that the main characters, Amina [...]
Teach
What Brain Science Can Teach You About Sex by Leon F. Seltzer. This post is an introduction to a succession of posts I’ll be doing that explore the latest findings on human sexual desire. In particular, the series will focus [...]
Ghosts
The WSJ reviews Psychology’s Ghosts by Jerome Kagan.
Wrong?
What’s Wrong with Joel Osteen? by Brian Lee. On Sunday night, 41,000 fans packed Nationals Stadium in Washington, D.C., to hear a message of hope, inspiration, and encouragement from Joel Osteen. Most paid about $20 (including fees) for the privilege. [...]
Observant Jew
Jesus and the Torah by Greg Carey. One commonly hears, especially in church, that Jesus routinely transgressed the Torah, the law of Israel. Indeed, at least one New Testament writer agreed, saying that Jesus “abolished the law with its commandments [...]
Kill?
Can Billboards Kill Religion? by Anthony B. Pinn. I am a non-theistic humanist, and I am one who believes theism does more harm than good. It provides cosmic justification for all sorts of trauma and damage; it devalues human bodies [...]
Stewart
Jon Stewart, Religion Teacher Extraordinaire by Mark Oppenheimer. As difficult as it is to find good writing about religion, it is harder still to find good television about religion. Most televangelists do not do good (challenging, nuanced) religious television: one [...]
GBI
A Sample Platter of Knowledge by Duke Cheston. Some days I really love my job. One of those days was when I discovered “Great Big Ideas,” the first course produced by the Floating University, an online for-profit college. “Great Big [...]
Hypothetical
The Hypothetical President by David Harsanyi. Plenty of Americans believe that the president’s rhetoric runs counter to facts, but actually, it’s the president’s own counterfactual arguments that matter most. Which is to say, nearly the entire case for President Barack [...]
Deny?
How I Learned Not to Deny Climate Change by Robert Tracinski. I do not deny the reality of climate change. No, this is not a change of mind, reversing my longstanding skepticism toward claims of human-caused global warming. I have [...]