Earlier this week, I got a bit distracted at night because I heard they were live-streaming the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) conference. Since the ERLC is part of the Southern Baptist Convention… and since they were talking about homosexuality… and since I’m a masochist, I figured: “Okay, I gotta watch this.” That was a mistake. I spent nearly an hour listening to one bigoted pastor drone on about the problems with homosexuality… and then another hour listening to a large panel of bigots drone on about the problems with homosexuality. And I think you should watch, too. At least the panel discussion. Why put yourself through that? Because you need to understand how regressive and ignorant the largest Protestant group in America is. The panel — which includes Greg Belser, Jimmy Scroggins, J.D. Greear, and failed sociologist Mark Regnerus — begins at the 1:21 mark below (that’s in hours:minutes, by the way): Read more
James Boster, a professor of Anthropology at the University of Connecticut, recently crossed paths with preachers on his campus. They were doing their usual schtick about sin, mixed with a dash of Creationism, and Boster couldn’t help himself. He began arguing with them, tried to preach the gospel of Darwin (my words, not his) to students passing by, and basically made himself look like an asshole in the video below: Read more
The Clergy Project — an online home for about 550 current clergy members who secretly don’t believe in God — is embarking on a very exciting new project. It stems from the fact that we don’t usually hear anything about these secretive members until they’re ready to announce to the world that they don’t believe in God. (Teresa MacBain and Jerry DeWitt are “graduates” of the project.) That’s about to change. Clergy Project members who are not out to the world yet will now have a chance to share their thoughts in the public square, writing for a new Patheos blog called Rational Doubt: Read more
After nearly six years of blogging at Unreasonable Faith (with help from Vorjack more recently), Daniel Florien is ready to move on to other projects. In his final post, he reflects on the experience: Read more
Oh, Pat Robertson… who are these people who write to you for advice? Who thinks he should be answering questions about, of all things, sex? Some guy named Jason does, and he wants to know what he should do about the lack of sex in his marriage: Read more
Buddhists who want to truly serve their faith could do better than to behave like thin-skinned jackasses over insults that aren’t. Some of the most fanatical (and sometimes violent) Buddhists can be found in Sri Lanka. Let’s take a closer look. Read more
Dan Savage is not the face of the LGBT rights movement, nor should he be (more on that in a moment). But Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute has much harsher words than that for Savage, comparing his views on homosexuality in society to lynching, the Holocaust, clubbed baby seals, and “napalmed Vietnamese girls.” About a year ago, shortly after the Supreme Court struck down a provision of the Defense of Marriage Act, Savage appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher to discuss the ruling, his It Gets Better Project, and some of his widely-known perspectives on LGBT life. Just two weeks ago, Higgins was oddly inspired to encourage IFI members to watch the video. She warned them of how “repugnant” it was, but affirmed nonetheless that true Christians needed to know just what they were dealing with: Read more
The evangelical Christian take on masturbation is usually pretty simple: Don’t do it. Don’t touch yourself. Don’t even think about touching yourself. There’s something wrong with you if you do it. Pastor Mark Driscoll even went so far as to say it basically amounted to homosexuality (*gasp*) because it was a sexual act that didn’t involve a woman and did involve you touching a penis. But that’s all referring to male masturbation. They typically don’t even want to acknowledge that women may want to touch themselves, too. So I was pleasantly surprised to see Jordan Monge’s article in Christianity Today in which she discusses female masturbation. Finally, a sensible take on the matter, right? Not even close. Read more
Who knew that devout Christians were being kicked out of entire professions? According to the American Family Association, LGBT individuals are destroying the job prospects of Christians in the following fields for the following reasons: Read more
Dammit… I *really* hope no atheist is responsible for this… Last week, in downtown Chicago’s Daley Plaza, the (Catholic) Thomas More Society put up a display of a giant 14-foot cross and image of Jesus. They requested and received permission to do it — and the Metropolitan Chicago chapter of the Freedom From Religion Foundation were soon to follow with a display of its own promoting separation of church and state. Last night, the image of Jesus was vandalized: Read more
