Evolution and religion:  Do they conflict?  

Not necessarily.  

Whether evolution conflicts with religion depends upon the context in which the theory of evolution is presented.  When evolution is discussed within the context of scientific inquiry and experimentation, there is no conflict.  When evolution is discussed within the context of philosophical and religious inquiry, conflicts may arise -- but such conflict is neither necessary nor inevitable.

Pat Robertson doesn't bother to take his foot out of his mouth before he puts the other one in.

Now he's calling professors "termites" and "killers."

Public Schools are the frontlines in the culture war that conservative Christians are waging in this country.   They have been since the day that they were integrated.

Ethics Daily has published a couple insightful articles regarding the latest developments in the battle to destroy America's public school system.  Bob Allen has written an essay about a new "Christian book" that "says Public Schools Subvert Parental Rights."  He goes on to describe recent challenges to public schools coming from every quarter of the political and religious right.   Ed Hogan has written about his "Concerns about the 'Exodus' Movement."  The "Exodus" movement is an organized effort to get Christians to remove their children from public schools.

While most mainline Protestant denominations and evangelical churches have jettisoned some of the core tenets of Calvinism, ideas about punishment and retribution brought to our shores by early Calvinist settlers are so rooted in the American cultural experience and social traditions that many people ranging from religious to secular view them as simply "common sense." What Lakoff calls the "Strict Father" model gains it power among conservatives because it dovetails with their ideas of what is a common sense approach to morality, public policy, and crime.

Focus on the Family Vice President Tom Minnery wasn't very happy about my piece on James Dobson and the Christian right's ties to Jack Abramoff, "Abramoff's Evangelical Soldiers." Of course, he can't -- and doesn't -- dispute one single fact in the article. The Nation received this today:

It is good to see that The Evangelical Climate Initiative has received a great deal of media attention.
The interesting story here is that a group of relatively conservative Christians have come together to not only shake up the Republican status quo on environmental issues, but to directly challenge the loyal pro-Bush faction of the Christian Right.

One of my friends on Live Journal had an interesting post in her blog yesterday. In it, she talked about a chilling conversation she had with some Christian friends of hers, and their perception of 'persecution' and what it means for the rest of us.

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The infamous anti-Mohammed cartoons from Denmark have been published online by the Christian Communications Network (CCN), a Washington, D.C.-based public relations firm run by Christian right activist and anti-abortion crusader Gary McCullough. McCullough distributed press releases calling for even wider publication of the inflammatory cartoons, including one caricature of Muhammad with a fuse-lit bomb tucked in his turban, and another of the prophet on a cloud in paradise, telling newly arrived suicide bombers, "Stop, Stop! We have run out of virgins!"

Islamic tradition forbids any depiction of the religion's holiest figure; such stereotypical, bigoted cartoons have sparked protests across the Muslim world.

McCullough stated in interviews that no one paid him to post the cartoons, and that he is not "speaking on behalf of the Christian faith." McCullough claims to be making a brave stance against terrorist violence and intimidation by Islamic fundamentalists. However, he has a history of condoning intimidation and violence -- including killing -- in the name of Christ.

An article in a December 2005 issue of The Economist entitled
Churches as Businesses - Jesus, CEO adds info to the recent discussion on these pages about American Mega churches, with more focus on their power, organization and potential viral spread to Europe and beyond. Following in the footsteps of the rise of sales and business training combined with Christianity in the early 1900's ("Jesus as the greatest salesman"), the article illustrates how Christian churches are taking on corporate business models and terms, even coining the term "PastorPreneurs." As business models go, it's educational for progressives wondering how to build movements and organizations, and at the very least wondering how these churches got so large - and where they might be headed.

Are you a dominionist?  I'll skip over formal definitions, but suffice to say that it's a general category of people who are theocrats -- or people who may be headed in that direction.

Given the way things are going, it's probably good to check ourselves every once in awhile -- just as a precaution. We did this early in the life of this site, and I think it is time to do it again.

Fortunately, there is a free online test.

One of the hardest things to understand is how conservative Christians have become so politically active over the last 20-30 years. The political mobilization of conservative Christians has had to overcome significant resistance. Conservative Christians have not traditionally been that interested in politics and even to this day, the leadership in the churches, both small and large, are mostly not pushing an explicit political agenda. A recent study of mega-churches gives further evidence that political activity in these churches is mostly overstated by the media.

Several of the obituaries marking Betty Friedan's death have quoted from her classic 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique. Some of its passages are quite stirring, in a retro kind of way, as she discusses the inchoate dissatisfaction felt by women convinced that they should find their isolated lives as suburban housewives fulfilling. But it was bizarre to reread this material in recent days and realize that the "mystique of feminine fulfillment" Friedan blasted apart 43 years ago is now being resurrected by the Christian right.