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Global LGBT Recap:Culture War Exports, Mob Violence and Kidnapping as Weapon of Homophobia

By Peter Montgomery

…contextual Bible study, developed in post-apartheid South Africa, provide new ways to read the Bible and what it has to say about sexuality and other central issues in the lives of African Christians. These new readings of old texts encourage Christians to accept LGBT people as God’s children. Even so, progressive African Christians are fighting an uphill battle. The voices of strident homophobic leaders in Africa have been amplified by large inf…

Religious Practices on Trial in Arizona: The Problem With “Experts”

By Johnny P. Flynn

…s kinda, sorta how James Ray set up his spiritual Ponzi scheme, right? He knew someone who knew someone who did “Indian sweats” and presto and voilà, Ray is taking people on spiritual retreats at 10K a head and then people start dying. So, experts have to be brought in to figure out what happened. No Indians mind you, just experts. And the truth is, we don’t want to be experts. Why? Because we know there is no such thing as Indians, redskins, warr…

Robbing Peter to Give Charity to Paul: The Dirty Secret Behind American ‘Giving’

By Peter Laarman

…charity can ever substitute for public justice. Dr. King said that when we Americans finally get our values right we will still need to play the role of the Good Samaritan but we will also come to understand that “the whole Jericho Road must be transformed. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.” In the decades since King first called for a transformatio…

Loving Uganda to Death: The Global Reach of Far-Right Christian Hatred

By Peter Montgomery

…biggest megachurch in Uganda, the high-living pastor is quite frank that “American money helped us build this church,” adding, “whatever you see here is the fruit of American labor.” In another clip, a pastor marvels that aid from U.S. evangelicals increased threefold when they started attacking homosexuality. Churches’ financial success brings added clout to anti-gay pastors like Martin Ssempa—who drives his congregation into a frenzy by showing…

In a Powerful Statement Black Presidents and Deans Say: No More Stolen Black Lives!

By Pamela R. Lightsey

…essor, Penn State University Shanell T. Smith, PhD, Associate Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins, Hartford Seminary Elise M. Edwards, PhD, Assistant Professor, Baylor University Renee K. Harrison, PhD, Associate Professor, African American & U.S. Religious History, Howard University School of Divinity Rev. Belva Brown Jordan, Interim President, Disciples Seminary Foundation, Associate Professor Practice of Ministry, Claremont School…

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell Needs to Get a Grip on his Issues with Mormonism

By Joanna Brooks

…haracterized pro-equality Catholics as not being representative of general American sentiment. “Is this some weird subset of the American population, some little cult? Did I forget to mention that Catholic is the largest single religion in the United States? The people we are talking about are real Americans,” said O’Donnell. “When Glenn Beck slanders those millions and millions and millions of liberal American Catholics, he does so because he…

A Christian Nationalist by Any Other Name… Is Still a Christian Nationalist

By Bradley Onishi

…f Asian descent in the United States in 1968, there must not be many Asian Americans in the country since so few identify as Asian American. Woodward uses this strategy to avoid confronting what it means to be an Accommodator of Christian nationalism. He doesn’t explain why this is a defensible position to hold in what’s meant to be a pluralist, secular democracy wherein no religious group is privileged in law or society. Instead, Woodward makes t…

How a Pioneer of Branding Invented Christian Fundamentalism

By Daniel Silliman

…aging and trademarking, as it were, old-time religion. How is the story of American capitalism also the story of modern American Christianity? They’re cultural twins. They’re both drawing from the same set of ideas about the nature of self and society that was, frankly, new in the days after the Civil War. These are the idea of the individual being the basic unit of analysis, that individual choices are really what matters, that’s how you create y…

“Americans Hate Muslims, Too” (And Other Impediments to U.S. Advocacy for Religious Freedom Abroad)

By Chad Bauman

…e value the expressions of evangelical Christian piety so common among the American political class, and do not dismiss them—as many Americans do—as cynical political machination. Stories in respected media outlets warn of aggressive evangelical campaigns “emanating from America,” and “backed by the highest of the land,” and are often accompanied by sound bites or pictures—in this case of George W. Bush, Jr., speaking in front of a large mural of…

Secure Borders? Not a Chance, Senator

By Ira Chernus

…other side of this paradox, and the emphasis can change over time. Recent American history illustrates that point very well, as another scholar of American religions, Robert Wuthnow, demonstrates in After Heaven, a book that offers a unique, if indirect, insight into the current debate on immigration reform. Wuthnow first set out to understand the distinctive spiritual style of the 1950s. Reading the religious literature of that era and interview…