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2017 Around the World: Progress and Persecution For LGBT People

…bbed 2017 “the year Russian LGBT persecution defied belief.” Pink News called 2017 “the year of the homophobic purge” featuring “brutal crackdowns across the world.” The Daily Xtra’s year-end recap focused more on the good news, saying that “LGBT movements around the world” made “impressive gains,” noting advances in marriage equality in a number of nations. But the article also notes “horrific crackdowns on LGBT people” in Chechnya, Egypt, Uganda…

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I Created the Hashtag #EmptythePews Because It’s Time for Evangelicals To Walk Out of Toxic Churches

…The idea struck me because I have observed over the last couple of weeks—anecdotally, to be sure, and mostly in the Exvangelical support group, an online safe space for ex-Evangelicals founded by Blake Chastain—many people stating that evangelical Trump support was the final straw that led them to leave evangelicalism behind. I believe that Evangelical pastors need to hear their message, and so do those still in the pews who may be harboring doubt…

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A Devil’s Dozen of the Best ‘New Religion Journalism’ Books of the Decade

…r – Rising to prominence as one of the most astute of radical reporters embedded within the Occupy movement (arguably its own religious revival, in the best of ways), Nathan Schneider’s God in Proof is the rare religion nonfiction book that doesn’t just use the tools of New Religion Journalism to write about ritual, belief, or identity, but to actually get into the syllogisms as it were, and to investigate theology. God in Proof concerns with the…

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The Top 10 (Non-Religious) Religious Films of 2017

…l always have with you. It’s hard to keep imagining dystopian futures and recreating mythologies about ending worlds, and some do it better than others. New York Times film critic A.O. Scott called the original Blade Runner a “sacred text,” and its cult following (see pick #8, below) provoked all manner of Talmudic midrash. In this sequel, Denis Villeneuve (of Arrival fame) applies his characteristic deep sounds, elliptical stories, and internal-s…

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Muslims in America, Fifty Years Later: New Poll Shows Pride and Optimism In the Face of Bias

…o be a national security threat. The 2017 Pew poll paints a picture of unprecedented anti-Muslim discrimination, hate crimes, and bias in the country. As in 1967, today’s F.B.I.—whether overseen by Democrats or Republicans—actively engages in counter-intelligence in the country’s Muslim communities. Entrapment, or so-called sting operations, have accounted for perhaps 317 out of 580 total anti-terrorism prosecutions of Muslims, according to 2016 d…

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Stronger Than We Look: Ten Tendrils of Hope for 2017

…r than as sunshine patriots. 3. Contested faith, first instance. While al-Qaeda and ISIS vie for control of fanatical forces in Syria and Iraq, across the world we can also see significant pushback within Islam against Wahhabism and Salafism and against all forms criminality committed under cover of piety. Reza Aslan speaks credibly of this as an Islamic Reformation moment. 4. Contested faith, second instance. Let’s not forget Pope Francis’s conti…

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Russian Operative Maria Butina, Who Leveraged Christian Right Connections, Sentenced For Conspiracy

…conservative U.S. political circles for the Kremlin. In December, Butina pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to act as a Russian agent in the U.S. without registering with the Justice Department. While her case has been handled separately from the Mueller investigation, this case also exposed the various means employed by Moscow to influence U.S. policy. A sentencing memo filed on April 19, 2019 in this case describes a technique known as “s…

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Peter Berger, Sociology’s Defender of God (1929-2017)

…l, there can be no doubt that religion today is being globalized to an unprecedented degree” (p15). Trying to make sense of this new reality, like the many social realities that fascinated him over his enormously prolific career, continued to challenge Berger, and at heart there was the moral issue: was religion used for civil or uncivil ends? This brings me back to the story with which I began these comments, the image that Berger raised of the H…

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CPAC 2017: Hypocrites on Parade

…ething: All of those promises are going to be implemented. When Schlapp asked each man to detail the most critical accomplishments in the first 30 days of Trump’s presidency, Priebus pointed to traditional Republican goals, including the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch, which he framed as an example of Trump establishing “trust” with the American people, pointing to the list of 20 names (including Gorsuch’s) that the Trump campaign…

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Rev. Barber: A “Moral Center,” Not a “Religious Left,” Will Save Us in 2017

…in September. All this organizing was under way before Donald Trump was elected president, but the prospect of a Trump presidency adds a sense of urgency to the movement. Barber says a moral agenda “must be anti-racist, anti-poverty, pro-justice, pro-labor, transformative and deeply rooted and built within a fusion coalition.” A moral agenda demands policies that are “constitutionally consistent, morally defensible and economically sane.” On New…

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