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

By Colin Chapell

…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 anecdote and vignette from their research. We spend so much time in the archives, getting to know our subjects, and often working with very, very personal l…

Why Anti-Gay Bullying is a Theological Issue

By Cody J. Sanders

…ychotherapeutic organizations reject notions of the pathological in sexual minorities, dominant religious and cultural ideology is in a state of crisis. It is no longer an unquestioned assumption that heterosexual experience represents the definition of reality for all people. The power to define reality for the masses is at stake and this power comes with all manner of political and ideological implications. Thus, there is a vested interest on th…

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

By John Wigger

…, Heritage USA, and a private satellite network that reached into fourteen million homes in the US. That year, six million people visited Heritage USA. Jim and Tammy lived in luxury, buying vacation homes, expensive cars and clothes, and traveling first class with an entourage. Then it all came crashing down. In March 1987 Bakker resigned in disgrace after his 1980 sexual encounter with Jessica Hahn in a Florida hotel room became public. Stories e…

The Only Common Denominator of American Conservatism is Anti-Blackness

By Yannick Marshall

…on Juneteenth is, according to them, unprecedented. It’s too terrible to admit that millions of their compatriots can not only stomach the stench of concentration camps and strange fruit but can also inhale it deeply and be exhilarated by it. A more reasonable interpretation exists Tom Cotton, a Republican Senator from Arkansas, defended slave masters saying they thought it to be a “necessary evil.” Jeff Sessions, the former US Attorney General “j…

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

By Christopher D. Cantwell

…to comport themselves with classical definitions of their faith. Historian Michael S. Hamilton, for instance, argues in one of the collection’s original contributions that evangelicals have doubled Bebbington’s quadrilateral by injecting Christian nationalism, Christian tribalism, political moralism, and antistatism into the movement. Kristin Kobes Du Mez’s reprinted essay similarly highlights the importance of patriarchal authority and militant m…

Modern Vampires: Your Neighbors and Spouses

By Joseph Laycock

…infringes on that comfort. By the end of this study, I was shocked at the number of educated people I met who dismissed my work as a book on “freaks.” Ideally, I would like readers who dismiss this community to stop laughing, and readers who fear this community to perhaps smile. What alternative title would you give the book? So many books have been written about vampires that almost every clever title has been taken. Our Vampires, Ourselves was…

Welcome to the Shari’ah Conspiracy Theory Industry

By Sarah Posner

…Beinin struck back at Pipes’ “false and brazenly bigoted” attacks on academics in Middle East studies with its “naked McCarthyite character” and accusations that Middle East scholars who do not share his views are un-American. Conspiracy Theorists Get a Hearing in Congress These views nonetheless have a hearing among Republican lawmakers and presidential aspirants. Despite being shunned at CPAC, Gaffney’s views are shared by Rep. Allen West (R-FL…

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

By Hussein Rashid

…f background learning for journalists. As a result, unless the religion is mired in conflict, it does not get covered, a point raised by Pastor Dan. Conflict is easy to understand and frame, with little nuance necessary. With respect to Islam, the current dominant narrative is that Shi’ah and Sunni have been in conflict for 1400 years and are always trying to kill each other. As I have argued elsewhere, this view of history is untenable, and reads…

New Reports Reveal Global Persecution of Nonbelievers

By Austin Dacey

…drawn the attention of some authorities: The trend of prosecuting “blasphemies” shared through social media is most marked in Muslim-majority countries. For example, in addition to the tragic, but all too familiar, wave of blasphemy prosecutions in Pakistan, this year saw prosecutions for allegedly atheist comments on Facebook and Twitter in Bangladesh, Bahrain, Egypt, Indonesia, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Turkey. In some of these cases,…

Americans Say Religion is “Losing Influence”

By Diane Winston

…big tent approach to coverage of American ir/a/religion. But do the Gallup numbers point to new ways we might be thinking about business as usual? Two findings are striking. First: Gallup reported that although Americans felt religion’s influence was declining, many—75 percent—agreed that more religion would be positive for the country. Not surprisingly, churchgoers were most gung-ho about religion’s beneficial impact. But “over half of those who…