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LDS General Conference in the “Mormon Moment”

By Joanna Brooks

…ave asserted the Christianity of Mormon belief for national audiences, the number one reaction has come from Christians who seek to correct my understanding of my faith and remind me that Mormons are not, in their eyes, Christians. Some assert that they’ll be praying for my mistaken soul (and the soul of my Jewish husband too). Others seek to engage in a friendlier conversational exchange about whether Mormons profess the Nicene Creed. (We do not…

Neuroscience Says Evil is “Over”: Not So Fast…

By Paul Wallace

…t at least he is certain to be believed.” Thus wrote Anthony Standen in his 1950 book Science is a Sacred Cow. What was true in 1950 is still true in 2011. Surely such public trust has no precedent outside of religion. Science Works, and Creationists Know It A possible objection: public trust? Is this not a golden age for creationism and biblical literalism?Are we not up to our necks in anti-science? Perhaps, but what do creationists say they are…

New Study Touts Success of “Praying Away the Gay”

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…98 highly-motivated subjects, the authors found that a small, unspecified number can use prayer and counseling to shut down their sexual feelings or become a bit more bi. And possibly none who turned straight.” Even the researchers call their conclusions “overly optimistic.” “These results do not prove that categorical change in sexual orientation is possible for everyone or anyone, but rather that meaningful shifts along a continuum that constit…

The New Age Fantasy of a Celtic Church that Revered Nature and the Divine Feminine Never Existed — So What?

By Ed Simon

…han reality. Today, the idealization of Celtic Christianity endures in any number of manifestations, from a community like Iona to the shelves of New Age bookstores. Bradley argues that although the idea of a historical Celtic Church may be an exercise in “wishful thinking, romantic nostalgia and the projection of all kinds of dreams about what should and might be,” it’s also a “vehicle through which people have chased their dreams… of deeper spir…

“Pregnancy is Not a Disease”: Birth of an Anti-Contraception Rallying Cry

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…pics of contraception, menstruation, pregnancy, and childbirth. That was in 1973—two years after Stephen and Ina May Gaskin, plus a few hundred of their hippie friends from San Francisco, had founded The Farm, an intentional community in Tennessee. There Ina May helped to start a midwifery center, and in 1977 wrote Spiritual Midwifery, for which she became well known. In her way, Ina May and her midwifery colleagues from The Farm were, like the BW…

Picasso’s Sacred Monster Eats Chicago: A Mystery Solved?

By Jeremy Biles

…tive interpretation. Multiply ambiguous, it is a strange concoction of any number of animal and human forms, as well as a sphinx; itself a hybrid monster. Moreover, the Chicago Picasso intimates both the Egyptian and Greek sphinxes—an amalgam of cultural styles. An ambiguous, almost inscrutable object, it is an enigmatic icon and the icon of an enigma; its very presence confronts the populace with a riddle. The riddle is not simply what the Chicag…

Dispatch from Charlottesville: “It Was a War Zone. It Felt Like There Were a Million Nazis.”

By Sunnivie Brydum

…s is an exaggeration, but it felt like there were a million nazis, to like, 100 counter-protestors. That’s an exaggeration, but I’m just saying, that the number of nazis compared to counter-protestors was unreal. I’m just like, where in the hell did all these people come from? They took over the fucking city. So as things were heating up, we saw riot gear enter into our barricade, where we had been secured. And it was advised to leave that locatio…

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

By Anne Eggebroten

…lture of extreme secrecy has prevailed, codified in Vatican norms issued in 1962 requiring secret investigations and prohibiting any report to civil authorities. Will Pope Benedict XVI set in motion any change to canon law? Will he step down or ask any complicit bishops to resign? Will he even order a Church-wide investigation? Unlikely. Instead, his moral authority will continue to erode. The number of priests will continue to dwindle. Catholic w…

The Faith Outreach Canard

By Sarah Posner

…ent, Sapp claims the following: Compared to ’06, Democrats nationally saw a 14 point drop in White Protestant support, 14 point drop with White evangelicals, and a whopping 20 point decline with Catholics. But there are two major problems with this argument: first, it’s factually inaccurate — the numbers are simply wrong. While Democrats experienced significant losses compared to the last mid-term election in 2006, which was a good year for Democr…

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

By Peter Montgomery

…, but IHOP officials tell him about the ambitious goals they have for their 1,000-person staff: a vision of one million new Christian soldiers who will win one billion souls—and raising one trillion dollars to make it happen. They tell young followers, “You’re going to take over the world by the power of the Holy Spirit.” It’s clear that much of the power American culture warriors have in Uganda comes from the money their ministries pour into the…