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‘It’s a Gay Problem,’ and Other Myths From the Catholic Church’s Sexual Abuse Crisis

By Joelle Casteix

…ven though two victims may be the exact same age and emotional maturity—is reprehensible. The best thing we can do for victims is to discard these labels all together. “The church and Pope Francis are too liberal” A victim of child sexual abuse has no political leanings. Nor does a predator. Predators seek “easy targets”: at risk children who may lack family structure, self-esteem, or have other disadvantages that a predator can exploit. Child sex…

Packed with Threats of Political Violence, Media Largely Ignore the NAR’s ‘Million Women’ Rally in DC

By Frederick Clarkson

…lor thought it was less. But certainly tens of thousands attended, and the number may even exceed a hundred thousand. Whatever the actual number at the Mall, the audience was much larger since the event was live-streamed on Facebook, YouTube, and Rumble and translated into several languages. The Jumbotrons that lined the Mall were alternatively closed captioned in English and Spanish. It’s difficult to imagine any other religious or political even…

A Peek Inside the ‘Onion’ of Scientology

By Kristin Rawls

…se. There have been allegations of abuse, for example, and an overwhelming number of these reports. Celebrities are kept totally in the dark about that. This is why people like Haggis have expressed such shock. Through the internet it is far easier to read about these allegations. But they wouldn’t have known anything about it in the past, and are still largely unaware because Scientologists are instructed not to read anything critical of Scientol…

Punks vs. Monks: Rockers Speak Out Against Genocide in Myanmar

By M. Sophia Newman

…ey are “Bengali” illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh. While the number “969” is derived from Buddhist concepts, the movement appears to rely on economic anxieties, rather than religious philosophy, to incite anti-Muslim sentiment. While some monks have called the 969 movement a fringe group, anti-Rohingya protests have drawn hundreds of monks in capital city Yangon in the past year. Burmese dissident Maung Zarni has called the movement…

Like a Virgin

By Donna Freitas

…forthcoming in April from Oxford University Press on the subject), I met a number of evangelical Christian young women who had “repackaged their virginity” (as one woman called the process). I wonder how dismissive and cynical people would be after hearing some of their stories? There was nothing funny about these young women’s sexual identities. Yes, my feminist radar went up and pushed me to simply critique what, at least on the surface, sounded…

If You Liked The Martian You’ll Love These 3 Sci-Fi Shorts

By Andrew Aghapour

…. Luckily, Weir offers a treasure trove of short stories on his website, a number of which break with The Martian’s goal of approximating reality, grappling instead with some of the same issues that we discuss here at The Cubit. Without further ado, here are the top three short stories for anyone jonesing for more Weir: Bored World. The story of a mischievous, trans-dimensional plane of existence. Is this a god, or the story of sci-fi itself? Anti…

Exclusion is Causing Great Harm: A Conversation With Suspended UMC Pastor Rev. Cynthia Meyer

By Joel Pitney

…than in the leadership? My congregation has been very supportive. A small number of people chose to leave. Some of them not because of their feelings around the issue of homosexuality, but they just struggled with the church being in the news. But that was a small number, and most folks have been very receptive. Many immediately began telling me about their family members, and all of their personal stories. My vulnerability in sharing let them op…

RDPulpit: Rick Warren and the Limits of Empathy

By Tom Davis

…Rick Warren signed a statement of concern about global warming, joining a number of the new breed of evangelicals, much to the chagrin of the old guard like James Dobson. The press began to talk about the expanded agenda of the “new evangelicals,” an agenda not limited to the old shibboleths of abortion and opposition to gay marriage. The Five Non-Negotiable Issues Despite all the above, on a number of issues critical to women’s lives, he remains…

Feeding on the Faithful: How Supernatural Thinking Empowered the Third Reich

By Eric Kurlander

…e. The second is that there’s little to no reality behind popular cultural representations of the Nazi supernatural. While many of these representations are exaggerated or erroneous, many others have some basis in reality. In the case of Hitler’s Monsters truth really is stranger than fiction. Did you have a specific audience in mind when writing? Whether they admit it or not, historians always want to reach—and impress—two audiences: their fellow…

Debunking the Myth That Democracy Is “Incompatible” With Islam

By Asma Afsaruddin

…ls and surveys conducted in several Muslim-majority countries have in fact repeatedly affirmed that Muslim populations desire representative and accountable governments—the most basic understanding of democracy—and regard democratic procedures, such as elections, as the appropriate mechanism for establishing such governments. An extensive multiyear Gallup research study conducted between 2001 and 2007 in more than 35 nations that have predominantl…