Reading Time: 4 minutes A disturbing New York Times article about the increasing fusion of U.S. evangelical Christianity and right-wing politics reveals a growing aspirational narrative thrusting Jesus front and center in American government. It is the opposite of what America’s founding fathers envisioned for their new, secularly governed democratic republic based on Enlightenment values. Yet, fundamentalist Christians since […]
church and state
Posted inNews
Why aren’t churches paying taxes?
Reading Time: 2 minutes Churches have become deeply political spaces. Prior to the Christian Right’s integration into Republican politics in the 1980s, churches didn’t play a major role in campaigning. Evangelicals have reshaped that narrative, with movements such as the Moral Majority pushing the Christian Right into mainstream political battles. As the decades have worn on, the Christian Right […]
Posted inSecularism
A penny saved: Why are churches tax-exempt?
Reading Time: 9 minutes Growing up in a small town in Michigan in the middle of the twentieth century, I heard this proverb frequently, and it always puzzled me. In elementary school, I earned a weekly allowance by performing household chores like mowing the lawn and drying and putting away the dishes as my mother washed them. My income […]
Posted inPolitics
How a critical thinking deficit aids fascism…and religion
Reading Time: 5 minutes Why do so many Americans embrace such outlandish and patently false ideas these days? Partly because they were never taught critical-thinking skills.
Posted inGeneral, Politics, Secularism
‘The Nation’ normalizing astrology is like ‘Mother Jones’ endorsing junk food
Reading Time: 5 minutes The Nation is an august progressive magazine. Then, why is it normalizing astrology and horoscopes? It can’t actually believe that stuff, can they?
Posted inGeneral, Philosophy, Secularism
U.S. Christians decrying public shaming are pots calling kettles black
Reading Time: 5 minutes Public shaming is as Christian as crosses symbolizing the crucifixion. So Christians condemning public shaming in other contexts is hypocrisy.
Posted inPolitics, Secularism
Cardinal Burke yet another religious leader laid low by Covid after dissing vaccines
Reading Time: 4 minutes Disinformation about Covid-19 and its vaccines, as that perpetrated by now-infected Cardinal Raymond Burke, causes needless suffering and death.
Posted inReligion
U.S. vaccine refusniks lack legal leg to stand on
Reading Time: 3 minutes If Coronavirus vaccine refusniks think they are protected by the U.S. Constitution, they have another think coming. The Supreme Court has endorsed mandates.
Posted inPolitics, Secularism
Hats off to ‘Christians Against Christian Nationalism’
Reading Time: 4 minutes Happily, the organization named “Christians Against Christian Nationalism” actually exists. Even atheists should encourage it.
Posted inPolitics, Religion, Secularism
Are godly religion and sectarian violence two sides of same coin?
Reading Time: 4 minutes Religion and sectarian violence share a checkered history. That’s one reason why Europe’s top court just ruled companies can ban employee headscarves.