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A viral CNN post by Rachel Held Evans argues that millennials are fed up with the church’s reactionary politics and just want Jesus, while Brett McCracken counters in the Washington Post that were they to listen to their elders they’d break out of their twitter-obsessed world and find meaning. But what if it’s not authentic faith they’re looking for at all?

Just after the new pope effectively shut the door to the ordination of women, a priest connects his segregated Louisiana upbringing and campaign to end the U.S. Army School of the Americas to last year’s excommunication for his refusal to quit ordaining women.

While researching the history of philosophical arguments about the existence of God, it gradually became clear that my undertaking was in fact a study of masculinity, so shot through were these arguments with gendered assumptions and ideals. And, as a study of masculinity, it was also a study of patriarchy.

Over fifty years ago Bellah rocked the field of religious studies with a pioneering study on Japanese religion. When he died suddenly this past week he was working on a book that was set to land him as a pioneer yet again.

Even with depleted social policy and outreach organizations, liberal Protestant denominations continue to address issues pertaining to war, intervention, and foreign policy; debt relief, foreign aid, and economic development; white supremacism, racial justice, and affirmative action; women’s rights, gay and lesbian issues, reproductive rights, and child welfare; acid rain, ozone depletion, bio-diversity, and eco-justice; and much more.

Since the Rachel Held Evans post that launched a thousand responses everyone is talking about “millennials” leaving the church, but these conversations always seem to be missing an important question: Instead of asking why some people leave, can we ask why some stay?

When no news is not good news.

“I understand the temperature on Mars is going up, and we don’t have any SUVs there.”

Secular holidays, actually constituting a quasi-sacred calendar, span the entire year: From New Year’s Day, the King Holiday, the Fourth of July, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veteran’s Day, and now, at long last, Thanksgiving Day.

As budget cuts are hotly debated in the House, Godonomics comes along to tell us “what the Almighty says about the almighty dollar.” Finally.