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If the Old Testament Biblical Laws that are foundational to the contemporary Christian Right are to be the standard, then it stands to reason that the biblically prescribed punishments would, in their view, fit the crimes.

Abby Scher details how the Right’s fight over the Employee Free Choice Act shows the Right’s strength even after an electoral defeat.

Sin is not the only story. Our communities and our churches have the capacity to be compassionate, radically inclusive, and justice-driven.

Does poverty breed terrorism? Best-selling author Jared Diamond says it does, in a piece this week on the New York Times op-ed page. That’s not really Diamond’s point.

As the rightist philosopher Richard Weaver famously said, “ideas have consequences.” And I can tell you from personal experience some of the consequences of at least one idea, that of “natural law.”

For leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, if heaven ain’t a lot like Dixie—with low taxes, fewer regulations, a decreased state involvement in public welfare and institutions, denial of coverage for women’s health concerns, and bitter attacks on the Obama administration launched from every available platform—then they don’t want to go. And even the city slickers running Mitt Romney’s campaigns and the rowdy friends at Ron Paul’s rallies should be able to appreciate that.

As more African nations move to pass anti-gay laws, there is a need to reflect on the role U.S. conservative legal groups have played on the continent.

I like the interpretation of the word sacred as “set apart.”

The polarization of American Jews has increased with each large-scale eruption of fighting between Israel and Palestinians. With each escalation there has been a shift of pro-two-state solution activists to the left; at the same time, though, the right becomes strengthened and entrenched.

Why is a gay secular humanist academic who left the world of orthodox fundamentalist evangelicalism half a life time ago still singularly captivated by Southern gospel music? Why, in the book’s terminology, have I been a Southern gospel sissy lo these many years since evangelicalism ceased to otherwise be a functional worldview for me? And why am I still proud and happy about it? Turned outward, the question becomes: What is it about the music that supports so many various affections and attachments?