"Hold on a minute, there, Jesus," the twelve said. "Some of these people might be sinners and people we disapprove of. Feeding them all would be like opening a store and having to sell your wares to everyone who came in, without discriminating between the worthy and unworthy customers. That violates our religious liberty." Read more
Celebrating the Universal Declaration for Human Rights. Chad Michael Murray on the daunting responsibility of carrying on Kirk Cameron's legacy. John Calvin trashes Dave Ramsey. Bill Donohue celebrates Festivus (he's good at airing his grievances, not so good at the feats of strength). The news from Texas is still mostly dismaying. Kevin Drum on the "depraved" opposition to allowing the poor access to health care that's already paid for. Read more
Ads like this one, and our failure to reject them, further cement the impression that evangelicals are incapable of loving our neighbors-- incapable of living as neighbors with anyone who doesn't share our particular sectarian faith and sectarian political ideology. Read more
The condescension that accompanies the common-sense aspects of their advice could be shrugged off if Yoffe and Ramsey didn't take the next ugly step -- the sweeping implication that it is the "prey" who are primarily responsible for being preyed upon in their "prey-rich environment." Here's how Ramsey put it, explicitly: "The only variable in the discussion you can personally control is YOU. ... You can make better choices and have better results.” Read more
They're still fighting the class war. We're still losing: Employers want full-time availability for part-time work and small-time pay. Forty percent of American workers make less than $20,000 a year. Coal companies paid Johns Hopkins not to find cases of black lung. In Haiti's small-government libertarian paradise, wage-theft by bosses steals a third of workers' pay. And more. Read more
Rick Warren's stale ham sandwich. South Carolina state senator demands child labor and the abolition of retirement for able-bodied seniors. Oklahoma spends $70 on anti-divorce program; divorce rate in Oklahoma goes up. Charity as perpetual motion machine. Spiritual tricksters expose hegemonic hypocrisy of Christianists. And a maudlin, melodramatic Christmas song from Randy Stonehill. Read more
But here's the very very important thing to understand: David Barton doesn't think he is fooling anybody. He tells lies, but those lies are not intended to deceive his audience or to trick his fans into believing that something false is actually true. They all know it's a lie. Read more
Evangelism, properly understood, is a form of hospitality. Like all hospitality, it is an obligation, a moral imperative. But it cannot be imposed. Hospitality is an invitation -- "welcome," "make yourself at home," "take a load off," "taste and see" -- not an imposition. Read more
A Cleveland coffee shop gets all Sermon-on-the-Mount-ish. Molly Worthen pegs the dissonance between evangelical gatekeepers and evangelical diversity. Our unintentionally R-rated Christmas stockings. Jason Pitzl-Waters on the "Ongoing Ugly Legacy of the Satanic Panics." Friday night's alright for fighting, Friday night's alright. Desmond Tutu on Nelson Mandela. Read more
In the case of these hypothetical assistants, of course, no one would mischaracterize the unpaid underdog's response as "envious." She might be angry, but she'd be refusing to cooperate not because she's jealous of the other assistant, but because she is the victim of an injustice -- because the situation is clearly unfair. Her response is not motivated by envy but by a sense of justice. Read more
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