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The Senate candidate is proud of how his Masters in Divinity shaped his politics.

On Thursday, Barton’s publisher Thomas Nelson announced that it would pull from publication The Jefferson Lies. “In the course of our review,” the publisher said that it had “learned that there were some historical details included in the book that were not adequately supported,” and that “because of these deficiencies” it was “in the best interest of our readers to stop the publication and distribution” of the work.

“Jewish self-hatred” is an epithet that Jews fling at other Jews—for not being religious enough, or for daring to criticize Israel. As Paul Reitter puts it in his book, On the Origins of Jewish Self-Hatred, the term is an “an instrument of censure,” a “smear.” Reitter’s title is slightly misleading—the book doesn’t explain why some Jews hate themselves. Instead he explains the origin of the term. Reitter argues that many historians have wrongly assumed that the term has always been censorious, but careful study reveals that Jewish self-hatred was first put forward for a salutary, even messianic purpose.

Something is deeply wrong when the burden remains exclusively on the community itself to conduct all of the outreach, to articulate its values and defend its contributions to the rest of society. Should the educational burden be entirely on the community? There is a deep isolation, not to mention exhaustion, in that “cultural tax”—especially after a tragedy. Do we as Americans simply leave the community to articulate itself to its neighbors? Do we ask them to teach us at the same time as they are burying their dead? Or are there ways that fellow travelers can participate in the educational process?

…against Albert Mohler, who blasts him for attending same-sex weddings.

Passing off an old prejudice as atheist cool.

Sorting it all out.

Why it’s hard to tell the truth about Mormonism and polygamy—even for Mitt Romney.

Planets! Tablets! Underwear! When some of America’s most celebrated pundits and public intellectuals talk about Mormons, these are the images that are summoned. Ironically in this “Mormon Moment”—signaled by a hit Broadway musical, polygamous housewives on TLC, and of course two Mormon presidential candidates—Mormons, long considered quintessential “outsiders” to mainstream American culture, today find themselves at the center of the American zeitgeist. Yet it is the Mormons’ supposed theological weirdness that is the centripetal attraction.

Though Gingrich got clobbered in today’s Florida primary, his echoing of the US Bishops’ war on religion talking point is likely to make it all the way to the 2012 election.