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More Than Big Hair and Money: Jim, Tammy Faye and the Media “Holy Wars” of the 80s

By John Wigger

…Heritage USA, and a private satellite network that reached into fourteen million homes in the US. That year, six million people visited Heritage USA. Jim and Tammy lived in luxury, buying vacation homes, expensive cars and clothes, and traveling first class with an entourage. Then it all came crashing down. In March 1987 Bakker resigned in disgrace after his 1980 sexual encounter with Jessica Hahn in a Florida hotel room became public. Stories em…

The Only Common Denominator of American Conservatism is Anti-Blackness

By Yannick Marshall

…humed Robert E. Lees. White supremacist privilege, as opposed to white privilege, is the privilege—which is to say the power—to deny racist intent and always be taken at one’s word. To always be able to clutch one’s pearls and appeal in Scarlett O’Hara’s mint julep-inflected tone, Dearest me, we never intended to… and be believed. And remain a symbol of beauty in the world no matter how many scars are on Prissy’s back. Preventing that ‘eureka mome…

How the Study of Evangelicalism Has Blinded Us to the Problems in Evangelical Culture

By Christopher D. Cantwell

…tions at major research universities like Duke and Notre Dame. Noll, meanwhile, similarly taught for nearly thirty years at Billy Graham’s alma mater, Wheaton College, before succeeding Marsden in South Bend. Bebbington’s career followed a different path as a British scholar and citizen. But his work on evangelicalism in England nonetheless benefitted from America’s sudden interest in this newly public faith. Indeed, Bebbington’s famed four-part d…

Modern Vampires: Your Neighbors and Spouses

By Joseph Laycock

…sure? Piss them off? The “basic facts” about the vampire community are readily available on the Internet. There are also numerous books that have been written by journalists for a popular audience. My hope is to challenge the reader’s assumptions about self-identified vampires. I think most people are very comfortable regarding vampires as a fringe group. The idea that vampires could be their neighbors or have real ramifications for a democratic s…

Welcome to the Shari’ah Conspiracy Theory Industry

By Sarah Posner

…“radical Islam” is tied to Nazism, and that it is locked in a clash of civilizations with the West. The film, said Moline, “draws broad conclusions about a billion people without having a consultant with credentials in that community.” The Third Jihad expanded on Obsession by making the claim that radical Islamists had infiltrated the United States with the aim of instituting shari’ah law. On its website, the Clarion Fund claims, among other thin…

UPDATED: Religion Has Been Framed; Covering the Aga Khan’s Visit

By Hussein Rashid

…off from the main Shiite branch of Islam.” The fact that there is a larger number of non-Isma’ili Shi’ah does not make them the main branch. If the central belief of Shi’ism is the belief of Imamah, then the only group with a present, living Imam are the Isma’ilis, making them the main group. The point is that there are many ways to claim superiority, but the reality is most Muslims have lived with various other communities of interpretation. The…

New Reports Reveal Global Persecution of Nonbelievers

By Austin Dacey

…tian. Saber was rumored to be circulating the Innocence of Muslims film trailer on his Facebook page. In a video blog, he spoke of the importance of exercising critical reasoning about religious matters. While in custody, Saber was slashed in the throat by razor-wielding prisoners after a guard told them of his “crime” and he was compelled to give false statements. The legal charges were “contempt of Islam and Christianity,” “insulting the divine…

Americans Say Religion is “Losing Influence”

By Diane Winston

…ered our nation ungovernable. Worldwide, religious sentiments have been mobilized to torture and murder. I understand that religion itself is not to blame; followers can distort religious teachings and politicians can cloak ethnic hostilities and turf wars in religious language. Yet even so—people believe that they are acting in God’s name. Second: Gallup speculated that the growing sense of religion’s decline has less to do with personal religios…

Sacred&Profane: The Living Dead

By Gary Laderman

…f the twentieth century, so these accounts claim, the holiday became primarily child’s play, and a secular, fun-filled, consumer-oriented, neighborly celebration where the dead were no longer “really” present and potentially dangerous to the living, but rather part of a “pretend” world imagined for the sake of the children, who are naïve about the reality of death and the powers of the dead. Given this complicated and grave history, Halloween is e…

The Real Goal of Pro-Life Movement Support for Scott Brown: Kill Health Care Reform

By Sarah Posner

…Sarah Palin) but because he serves the movement’s goal in the short term: kill health care reform, and if they can’t kill it, at least eliminate abortion coverage. Under other circumstances, it’s hard to imagine how a Roe-supporting, Cosmo-posing hottie could become a hero of the religious right and the standard-bearer of a new conservative ascendancy. As the Democrats scramble to figure out whether to send the Senate health care bill to the House…