Word: secularism
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...zealots, led by divisive televangelists like Jerry Falwell, who helped yank the Republican Party so far to the right that moderates were frightened away. But Reed has emerged as the movement's fresh face, the choirboy to the rescue, a born-again Christian with a fine sense of the secular mechanics of American politics. His message, emphasizing such broadly appealing themes as support for tax cuts, has helped make the Christian Coalition one of the most powerful grass-roots organizations in American politics. Its 1.6 million active supporters and $25 million annual budget, up from 500,000 activists...
...popular interest in miracles, it turns out, comes along just as a generation of Bible scholars is dedicated to disproving them. From both seminaries and secular institutions, scholars are drawing on science, archaeology and modern textual criticism to write a chapter of Christianity that makes little mention of miracles except to reject them. They believe the teachings of Jesus are more important than the teachings about Jesus. In this book there is no virgin birth, no walking on water; the healings amount to parlor tricks, and the Resurrection never happened...
...horrifying. But a special repugnance is reserved for internecine butchery of the sort that has enveloped Algeria (pop. 30 million) ever since the secular regime, widely discredited for its corruption and incompetence, embarked on an ill-fated attempt at reform in 1989. After the government reluctantly agreed to the first free elections in 29 years of independence, army generals pulled the plug when the F.I.S. won a plurality in the first round of voting. The generals installed a puppet civilian government rather than allow a second-round electoral victory for the fundamentalists, whose draconian vision of an Islamic republic...
...concert was most definitely evangelical, yet the group has been recognized by the University for a quarter-century and is now supported personally by Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III, according to the Kuumba playbill. Are Kuumba and other "non-religious" groups such as Under Construction truly secular? After seeing one of its concerts, I'm sure that you wouldn't think...
Amid discussion of whether Christmas trees are religious or secular symbols. Hallie Levine (column, Opinion, Dec. 12, 1994) reminds us that Winthrop House has a history of Christmas tree controversies, "most notably last year, when several Jewish students vocally complained about their presence in the dining hall...