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Why Anti-Gay Bullying is a Theological Issue

By Cody J. Sanders

…acitly welcoming or pseudo-affirming position to come out and publicly proclaim their places of worship as truly welcoming and affirming sanctuaries for people of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities. I cannot count the number of times I have heard well-meaning, good-hearted people respond to this appeal, saying, “Things are a lot better for gay people today than they were several years (or decades) ago. In time, our society (or churc…

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

By John Wigger

…7 What’s the most important take-home message for readers? PTL helps to explain the persistent connections between religion and popular culture in American life, a connection that runs deeper than politics alone. PTL grew so quickly because of its embrace of consumer and celebrity culture, much of it through the prosperity gospel, but along the way the money and fame undermined the religious convictions of those at the top. Is there anything you h…

The Only Common Denominator of American Conservatism is Anti-Blackness

By Yannick Marshall

…disguise fools no one who hasn’t a vested interest in being fooled. Anti-Blackness is laundered until it appears as conservatism. There’s no immediately apparent relationship between “fiscal conservatism” and a mourning over the felled monuments of Confederate generals erected to threaten aspiring Black people. It’s not natural to assume that advocates for liberty and small government would be championing the expansion of police power and be the…

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

By Christopher D. Cantwell

…lly been surprised? I’ve been reflecting upon this sense of incredulity of late. In particular I’ve been wondering about the ways in which the study of evangelicalism itself may have blinded us to those truths that were revealed upon the Capitol steps. Because, as it has become increasingly clear, the majority of those who think of themselves as evangelical support Trump, not in spite of his racism, chauvinism, and Christian nationalism; they supp…

Modern Vampires: Your Neighbors and Spouses

By Joseph Laycock

…tion as well as their religious affiliation; pre-modern cultures generally lacked a vocabulary to describe sexual orientations, moderns speak of “discovering” their sexual identity. In a similar way, many individuals are “discovering” that they are vampires. This process of discovery is referred to in the community as “awakening.” For this reason I liken vampirism to Foucault’s idea of a “technology of the self.” This is also a book about categori…

Welcome to the Shari’ah Conspiracy Theory Industry

By Sarah Posner

…ment that a divorce be obtained only through a get. But when it comes to Islam, Lamborn sees a threat, and calls for Congress to “start digging deeper into understanding Shari’ah law.” King’s opening hearing on Thursday will likely the beginning of that effort, not the end. Although King, under pressure, may not feature the most incendiary of the shari’ah scare rhetoric, as the recent anti-Muslim diatribe caught on tape in Orange County demonstrat…

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

By Hussein Rashid

…broke 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 interpretatio…

New Reports Reveal Global Persecution of Nonbelievers

By Austin Dacey

…the new analysis by Pew. Of the 198 countries studied, 32 (16%) have anti-blasphemy laws, 20 (10%) have laws against apostasy, and 87 (44%) have laws against the defamation of religion, including hate speech against religious groups. Pew has consistently documented that such laws, often publicly defended as being motivated by respect for religion, are actually correlated with the suppression of religion. Countries with more prohibitions against bl…

Americans Say Religion is “Losing Influence”

By Diane Winston

…gs 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 religiosity than with events. The last time religious influence was deemed to be in sharp decline was the 1960s. Political protests along with cultural upheavals left many wondering about the future of t…

Sacred&Profane: The Living Dead

By Gary Laderman

…to the next world. The pre-Christian Celtic cultures throughout Europe, Ireland, and England understood the period around November 1 as not just a time to bring in the harvest, slaughter the livestock, and prepare for winter, but also to honor the dead—and most especially to ritually assist the souls who had died over the course of the year to move on to another world. With bonfires and sacrifices, feasting and divination, the Celts mingled with t…