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What Do ‘The Christians’ Believe? Easter Reflections from a Non-Christian

By Gary Laderman

…point. Perhaps all agree about the life and teaching of Jesus? Or that the New Testament is God’s revealed word? Any investigation beneath the surface of these possibilities would reveal the impossibility of consensus. Just take a quick glance at conservative responses to Brian McLaren’s A New Kind of Christianity to get a feeling for the way this debate takes place in real time. And beyond the sorts of theological, political, and institutional d…

Death With Dignity: Combatting Religious Opposition to Physician-Assisted Suicide

By Krista Kapralos

…The debate has largely focused on spirituality and ethics, but experts say new medical technology that has opened the door to the practice leaves religious organizations in a bind. Catholic leaders have long been supportive of pain-management measures, up to and including high doses of morphine that slow a patient’s respiration to the point of death, said Courtney Campbell, a professor of religion and culture at Oregon State University, and an exp…

U.S. Bishops Reject Pope Francis’ Priorities

By Patricia Miller

…was the last time the guide was completely overhauled, rather than draft a new guide for 2016. The 2007 guide was created after the previous version was widely interpreted as saying that Catholics had to elevate opposition to abortion as their main criteria for evaluating candidates, which was used to pillory John Kerry in the 2004 election. The 2007 edition, however, retained opposition to abortion and euthanasia as “foundational” issues for Cath…

When God and Gender Mix: New Book Examines the Southern Holiness Movement

By Colin Chapell

…ge how they understand their own identity. If academic achievement and the number or type of initials after your name is the most important thing in the world to you, then it will change how you view your own masculinity and femininity. Similarly, if having children matters most to you, then you can only be truly “manly” or “feminine” if you have kids. Is there anything you had to leave out? Historians always want to include every interesting anec…

Renovating Marriage, One Gay Couple at a Time

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…ose marriage equality on religious grounds. For them, I point to a growing number of religious leaders who also understand that gays and lesbians can do a lot to “redefine” marriage in beneficial ways. Rev. Ed Bacon, who leads the 4,000 member All Saints Church in Pasadena, Calif., told Oprah Winfrey this past weekend that marriage would be “enriched” by same-sex couples. I’ve never had a straight couple come to me and say, ‘My marriage is in trou…

Sacred&Profane: The Living Dead

By Gary Laderman

…oked. There are ghosts and graves in the yards of my neighborhood, and the number of skeletons—reclining on lawn chairs, sprouting up from the ground, beckoning from the shadows—has transformed the suburban landscape into a set for a George Romero film. In addition, and beyond bland suburbia, monsters, ghosts, skeletons, vampires, and other playful dead inhabit stores and sell products, entertain across the television dial, and instill a dreadfull…

Pop Culture Yogi B. K. S. Iyengar Dead at 95

By Andrea R. Jain

…in her quest to “conquer” the body. Iyengar established authority for his new system of Yoga by claiming ties to the yoga tradition presented in the South Asian text popularly recognized as the “classical” source, the Yoga Sutras, usually attributed to Patanjali, as well as to later hatha yoga developments. Iyengar even responded to recent debates about yoga’s identity and transmission by introducing an invocation to Patanjali at the beginning o…

Will Iowa’s Abortion Ban Respect Religious Freedom?

By Christine Ryan

…ed being guided by religious obligations to oneself. A seminary student in New York explained that her abortion was inspired by her belief that “if it is not the right time or the right circumstance to have a baby, a pregnant person has the inherent spiritual authority not to call that particular future into being. Religious freedom law protects religious practices regardless of whether they’re mandatory in any religious tradition or derive from f…

Mormon Rejection of Trump Embarrassing for Evangelicals?

By Neil J. Young

…oters were repelled by his “alien” faith. In a recent article for Religion News Service, the popular Mormon blogger Jana Reiss suggested a few more reasons why Trump has a Mormon problem, including his demeaning treatment of women and his inauthentic claim to faith. The Mormon rejection of Trump also serves to further magnify Trump’s strange success among evangelical voters. While the evangelical magazine Christianity Today recently pointed out th…

An Unholy Holy Week: Is the All-Male Rule of the Roman Catholic Church Self-Destructing?

By Anne Eggebroten

…rch history,” declares the National Catholic Reporter in an editorial. The New York Times, which broke the story of abuse at the deaf school in Wisconsin, quotes a priest in Berlin as saying the crisis is “the worst in 100 years or more.” They Act Like They Don’t Believe in God It’s not that the faithful are leaving the Church—for the most part, they aren’t. It’s that the hierarchy itself is cracking. “What I would like to see is actually Christia…