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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…

‘Miracle’ in Manila

By Jonathan T Chow

…redit for this are the brazen nature of the alleged crime due to the sheer number of top officials implicated and the fact that it comes on the heels of the 2005 “Hello Garcia” scandal in which President Arroyo was accused of rigging the presidential election in her favor, leading to a failed impeachment attempt by the Congress. President Arroyo and her associates in Malacañang, the presidential palace, have also provoked popular anger because of…

A Question for Hobby Lobby Supporters…

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…aception. So is the salient difference the size of the list? Is there some number of things-this-paper-can-be-used-for that puts the employer at a safe moral distance from the act, where previously they had been complicit? If so, what’s the number? How long does the list of possible uses have to be to assuage the employer’s conscience enough to let the employees use their compensation for things the employer finds morally repugnant? See, here’s th…

Death Without Religion

By Gordon Haber

…ble assertion to make in such a tendentious book. Perhaps there is a small number of Americans losing their lives at the hands of hasty harvesters; even a very small number would be too high. But I had a hard time summoning any outrage. In the end I learned much more from Kagan—ironically because his aims are in a way more modest. He wants to convince you of his physicalist stance; however, he doesn’t want to tell you how to reconcile with death….

Grassroots Faith: The Lessons of The Social Gospel

By Christopher H. Evans

…ublic force in American politics. By the same token, when one looks at the number of visionary leaders influenced by social gospelers like Walter Rauschenbusch—such as Martin Luther King Jr.—it would be a gross injustice to the movement’s legacy to say that it failed. Rauschenbusch’s vision was of a faith-based movement that required not just a political but a spiritual response. My hope is that religious progressives who seek to build upon the so…

New Doc Strives for Christian Unity—But What if Unity is the Problem?

By Noah Berlatsky

…rue that Christian support for LGBT people is growing, among a significant number of Christians. But it’s also true that for others, as the film shows, bigotry and prejudice against LGBT people are inseparable from their sense of their Christian faith—overriding personal friendships and institutional commitments. This Christian bigotry is obviously inseparable from the Christofascist MAGA movement, which has also made discrimination against LGB an…

The Story Behind the Catholic Church’s Stunning Reversal on Contraception

By Patricia Miller

…procreation of human life.” The pope had deferred to a dissenting minority report prepared by four conservative theologian priests on the commission that maintained contraception was a “sin against nature” and a “shameful and intrinsically vicious act.” These theologians said that church could not change its teaching on birth control because admitting the church had been wrong about the issue for centuries would raise questions about the moral aut…

Like Azusa Street Baptized into Bureaucracy: Mexico’s Flourishing LLDM Church Loses its Apostle

By Michael Schulson

…tercessor and celebrity. LLDM pastors sometimes refer to the Church as the república del salvador—republic of the savior—and to the congregants as un nuevo Israel and un pueblo—a people. That seems about right. In many ways, the church functions like a kind of landless state, with baptism as its passport. It comes equipped with dynastic royalty, a capital, and a shimmering white palace. Immigrants, too, can be citizens, wherever they may be. Back…

How Religion Shapes (or Doesn’t) Our Views on Public Issues

By Daniel Schultz

…y .26. That should give you (digging for iTouch calculator) 4%. That’s the number of people who can be persuaded on religious grounds to preserve reproductive rights. Common ground on this subject does not work. The best you can hope for is to change the subject, and we all know how well that worked during the health care reform debate. (Conversely, .82x.26=.21, or nearly all of the Republican base.) Second: nobody gives a rat’s patootie about rel…

Did North Carolinians Vote Against their Own Beliefs?

By Peter Montgomery

…their families and deny them equal rights as citizens. The second saddest number comes with its own silver lining. Public Policy Polling reported on Sunday that most North Carolina residents believe that gay couples should have access to some legal protections. But because most voters didn’t understand just how extreme and far-reaching the amendment before them today was, they would vote for it to “protect” marriage. According to PPP: In some sen…