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And so the world still turns. No rapture, no living hell, no Armageddon. We are where we were before the weekend with no signs of Christ’s return, facing the same ol’ same ol’: Arnold’s love child, Newt’s flame-out, life without Oprah. Perhaps this might be a nice teachable moment to reflect on all this—not nonsense at all, but rather an illuminating cultural moment that reveals an awful lot about the role of religion in our crazy world. What are the key takeaways from the “mediapocalypse”? Here are five for your consideration:

Many of these weather events actually are a kind of “punishment”—not in the conservative-theological sense of tit-for-tat justice meted out by an Abusive Father on High, but in the more progressive-theological sense of unforeseen consequences of reckless human actions. Climate scientists have said for years that global climate change will lead to increased severe weather events, and now they appear to be here; along with droughts and poor harvests caused by shifting climatic belts. On a planetary basis, we are reaping what we have sown for two hundred years.

Attempts to legally define yoga would amount to identifying a bounded tradition of symbols, practices, and ideas, which in reality vary across yoga studios and ashrams within the United States alone.

How much is our view of justice determined by how we ourselves have been treated?

Five months before the big-budget Left Behind reboot hit theaters, evangelical movie producer Paul Lalonde was fighting with fans. Lalonde was still editing the film. The score was still being written…

Regardless of what good work we do for the church, our efforts will be seen by many church people as tainted because of our loving, committed relationship. The congregants in my partner’s home church are extremely proud of the work that she is doing with the poor in New York City. However, if they knew she was in a relationship with a woman, they would cease to talk about her. All of her good work would be invalidated in their eyes.

A deeper look at the world of Mormon identity politics.

The issue is not Christian conservatives advocating their views in the public square. The problem, rather, is their claim (at least in places such as The Daily Show or the New York Times) that their Providentialist beliefs and readings of documents from the past represent a kind of legitimate scholarship that should have its place in the public “debate.”

The Supreme Court declined to hear five same-sex marriage cases on Monday, thus opening the door to the expansion of marriage rights into 30 states. For supporters the decision represents an…

During my lecture I faced a standing room crowd of heretics, fence sitters, curiosity seekers, and true believers bracing for a circus sideshow. Traveling across America to speak on freethought and abolitionism during the 19th century, white feminist atheist Ernestine Rose was smeared as being a “thousand times below a prostitute.”