Evangelical litmus tests and the World Series: why we all need to be rooting against the Colorado Rockies

The World Series starts tomorrow night and people around here have gone Rockies crazy. I’m getting asked a lot if I’m excited, and the answer is yes - Go Red Sox! They all want to know “why aren’t you rooting for Colorado?” So I’m answering them:
First off, the Red Sox are my favorite team. Second, [...]

Quotabull

We have a responsibility to provide a moral framework for our kids.
— John Arthur Eaves Jr., Democratic candidate for governor in Mississippi, who once “rebuked the Democratic National Committee for leaving Jesus out of an Easter statement” and says he wants a “new day in Mississippi, where our children go to school with voluntary, student-led [...]

How stupid do Christian politicians believe God really is?

Today we introduce our newest writer, Sidicious Bonesparkle, PhD. Dr. Bonesparkle currently serves as Hell’s Ambassador to the United States, and he will periodically post on issues relating to politics, religion, and culture.
I often think the only thing sillier than the average American is the person he elects to represent him.In John 18:36 Jesus [...]

James Dobson killed God!

No, not by his own hand. Nor was it that God. First, let’s preface the story with his most recent pronouncement. In a New York Times op-ed on Thursday about a recent meeting of the fundamentalist Council for National Policy, he wrote: “If neither of the two major political parties nominates an individual who pledges [...]

John McCain and our Christian Nation®

John McCain is at it again. This time out he’s arguing, in an interview with Beliefnet, that the Constitution established the US as a “Christian nation” and he comes dangerously close to suggesting that only a Christian would be fit to be president (in fact, he seems to say just that before waffling and backpedaling [...]

Saturday Video Roundup: and the Lord said unto them…

Welcome back to Saturday Video Roundup, where today we turn our attention to Jesus. We begin with the Rev. Rowan Atkinson, reading a lesson from what we can only assume is some sort of new revised version of the Bible.

Lawsuit alleges mandatory Christianity in US military

Pentagon Sued Over Mandatory Christianity reads the Truth Out headline.
A military watchdog organization filed a lawsuit in federal court Tuesday against the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and a US Army major, on behalf of an Army soldier stationed in Iraq. The suit charges the Pentagon with widespread constitutional violations by allegedly trying [...]

Scroguely Works: Five Moral Pieces

Five Moral Pieces by Umberto Eco, first published 2001, 128 pages, ISBN 978-0156013253
“The modern world looks at war through eyes different from those with which it looked at the problem early in the twentieth century, and if someone were to talk today of the beauty of war as the only form of world hygiene, he [...]

Military proselytizing, a Baldwin brother, and apocalypse by design…

As more information becomes available about the infiltration of the military by fundamentalist Christian groups via Pentagon approved proselytizing, worrisome issues regarding the long term aims of evangelizing the troops present themselves.
First there’s this exploration of the power of “Operation Straight Up,” an apocalyptic “entertainment group” that boasts Baldwin brother Stephen as a [...]

When “God and country” becomes “God is country…”

The inspector general of the Department of Defense has released a report that finds high ranking Pentagon officers in violation of long standing military regulations for their participation in a recruiting and marketing video by the fundamentalist group Christian Embassy while in uniform and on active duty.
Truthout.org offers thorough coverage of the report and [...]

Staff Cartoonist Presents: It wasn’t until gay polygamy was legalized that the Almighty got REALLY pissed…

Props to Queerty!

Breeding for Christ, conservatism and consumerism

An interesting piece came across my desk the other day that paints a chilling picture of how strong the religious right’s death grip is on American culture and politics…and how that death grip is actually maintained by business interests who want to ensure that the American machine keeps rolling along.

Ave Maria: the Holy City of Domino’s Pizza and Christian Soldiers

This week saw the first public tours of Ave Maria, the combination Catholic university/planned community envisioned by Thomas Monaghan, the former Domino’s Pizza magnate turned fervent facilitator of a new Catholic movement.
Essentially, the community seems like a perfect hermetically sealed environment–families will be able to walk to work, send their kids to school, and [...]

Joss Whedon on “honor killing”

I don’t usually do drive-bys, but Joss Whedon (he of Buffy and Firefly fame) has an impassioned take on the much under-publicized “honor killing” of Dua Khalil, and some of our readers might want to have a look.
Also check out the emerging Nothing But Red movement here.
Feel free to refer back to this case if [...]

Staff Cartoonist Presents: The good Reverend doth protest too much, or: Goin’ undercover to drain the Homosexual Menace(tm)

I certainly hope the atrocious handwriting doesn’t hinder the message behind this piece, which I can best put this way: Sanctimony and internalized homophobia are two great tastes that taste great together. They’re like S’mores, only with hypocrisy instead of graham crackers, profound human suffering instead of chocolate, and… well, we won’t worry about [...]