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Why would the mere existence of gay and lesbian families contribute to the breakdown on Wall Street? Ask Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council.

While I might have some kind of God-experience, unlike testing aspirin, I can’t easily carry out my God-experience simultaneously on statistically significant large numbers of people, write up the experience, repeat it, compare the same number of people at the same time who don’t believe in God, but are otherwise similar, see if they have the same experience, and then have someone repeat my experiment and see if they get the same results. This method is what science is supposed to be about; this is scientific proof, this is what scientists believe in. But, says Jonah Lehrer, it’s not that simple. He describes what he calls ‘the decline effect’: many experimental results that are strikingly positive and statistically significant are not replicable.

The idea of martyrdom hasn’t been in very good shape lately. One common usage of it—“I’ll not be made a martyr!”—refers to the prospect of somewhat tragic but mostly useless suffering, perhaps in the service of a delusional cause, religious or otherwise…

It’s no accident that so many allegations of serious abuse have arisen across Sovereign Grace Ministries. The combination of patriarchal gender roles, purity culture, and authoritarian clergy that characterizes Sovereign Grace’s teachings on parenting, marriage, and sexuality creates an environment where women and children—especially girls—are uniquely vulnerable to abuse.

It’s not outlandish to see theological meaning in the drive to slash government spending for human services if we accept some version (no matter how secularized) of the concept of original sin.

After years of anticipation, The Book of Mormon—the Broadway musical from Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park, and Robert Lopez, one of the people behind Avenue Q—is in previews; it opens March 24.

A recent study threatens to overturn conventional wisdom.

The biblical heroine Judith used her wiles to political advantage; except Judith did it to save her people. What’s Palin’s purpose?

Calgary’s Catholic School trustees vote to leave girls at risk for HPV; if we don’t teach them, they’ll be chaste, right?

Good for Obama but bad for Proposition 8?