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‘Imagine Better’: Can Harry Potter Change the World?

By B. Howell Belser

…to date was HPA for the Win in June 2010, during which HPA mobilized huge numbers of online voters from across fandoms and online communities to win a $250,000 grant from the Chase Community Giving contest on Facebook. Then there’s the current “Deathly Hallows” campaign, which centers on the release date of a Harry Potter movie—in this case, The Deathly Hallows: Part 1 on Nov. 19. The Deathly Hallows campaign will run for nine months—the time bet…

Transgender and Christian: Finding Identity

By Jori Lewis

…abruptly; and another person fell asleep. At the end, they all seemed satisfied, though. I asked one participant, a tall transwoman about why she comes to the group. She said, “I finally found a place where I can talk about my spirituality—as a transgender person.” Because, here at Gender People, their transgender identity isn’t something to apologize for or something they need to justify; it is, according to Moses, a gift, a blessing, and its ow…

New Poll: Evangelicals Backing Trump

By Daniel Schultz

…ound one-quarter of the electorate ever since 2000. According to Pew, that number will be a bit lower this time around: about 20%, by their estimate. White evangelicals are losing ground to non-white voters just like all whites, and to the religiously unaffiliated, just like all Christians. Those unaffiliated voters—the “Nones”—now rival white evangelicals in size. About two-thirds of them support Hillary Clinton, making them a solid Democratic co…

Blood and Politics — Christian White Nationalism in the Age of Obama

By Bill Berkowitz

…ant White nationalism, and the old White supremacist movement was thus transformed into 21st-century White nationalism. You argue in the book (and the title references it) that White nationalists have successfully moved from the “margins to the mainstream.” How did this happen? Through a combination of factors. First, through the slow accretion of organizing week-in, week-out events: Klan rallies, Bible camps, survivalist and gun shows, White-powe…

Why We Won’t Let Jonestown (Or 9/11 or Sandy Hook) Die

By Kelsey Osgood

…e story of a small group coming to grips with a mass cultural trauma. As a number of notable sociologists put forth in their book Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity (University of California Press, 2004), society, to put it simply, can experience trauma like an individual can. As with the individual, there are a few things that make a society more vulnerable to trauma. “A society emerging from a major war, suffering from diminished economic r…

Growing Up Cult: A Memoir of Life with Sri Chinmoy

By Brittany Shoot

…xperiments), she began to question the idea of devotion to a guru. After a number of attempts to leave, she broke free of the group at age twenty-five. I recently caught up with Tamm to talk about Sri Chinmoy’s death, her use of the word “cult,” and what her spiritual life looks like today. ** Did it make a difference to his followers that Sri Chinmoy was from India? Did it give him extra authority? In the late 1960s, there was a trend to look to…

Dispatches From the Rhodian Shore: A (Tough) Love Letter to Religious Studies

By Todd LeVasseur

…nature in economics. Most of the rest of my argument builds on data point number 5, focusing on how religious studies (as if that’s a monolithic thing) to date has talked about the natural world. I share the below as someone who is at the core of my training a religionist who’s vested in using education to build a better, more sustainable society. I recognize that understanding the role of religion in society is of import as we work toward this g…

New Mormon Anti-Gay Policy Sparks Mass Exodus From Church; Christian AID Workers in Africa Refuse to Help Gay Refugees; Ukraine Rejects, Then Accepts EU-Required Gay Rights Law; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…the other four countries. Turkey is particularly singled out for its high number of hate crimes, attacks and murders of transgender persons. Successful prides in Albania, Kosovo and Serbia were welcomed, whereas Montenegro and Turkey were condemned for the ban of the Nikšić Pride and police violence against Istanbul Pride. Concerning legal gender recognition, the report on Montenegro welcomes the adoption of a new protocol for legal gender recogn…

My Womb for His Purposes: The Perils of Unassisted Childbirth in the Quiverfull Movement

By Kathryn Joyce

…use my womb for His purposes. I imagined myself explaining after my successful home birth that it was because I had been faithful in seeking His will for my life that the Lord had carried me and my baby safely through. The flip side of that trust and faith can lead women to ignore all doubts or intuitions as challenges to one’s faith, as Chmielewski seemed to when she wrote (italics added): I have thought about my wondering and doubting and I hav…

Is Obama the Antichrist? Why Armageddon Stands Between the President and the Evangelical Vote

By Matthew Avery Sutton

…ts, a hidden “plan of the ages” emerges. According to their decryptions, a number of events will transpire just before the apocalypse. These include a return of the Jews to Palestine, a decline in morals, religious apostasy, and the consolidation of independent nations into one super-state led by a seemingly benevolent leader who is actually the Antichrist. During the last 100 years, evangelicals have witnessed more and more evidence of these prop…