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PCUSA’s Nod to “Traditional” Marriage Understandable, but Not Accurate

By William E. Smith

…of the past two thousand years, Christian women could marry Jesus, who (in most Christian theologies) cannot be said to be a regular human, since he is also fully divine, nor be considered alive in any standard sense of the word. During the Middle Ages, strikingly, these unions to Jesus were legally binding marriages, as Thomas Head (1990) and Sarah McNamer (2010) have shown. Like Catholic nuns today, medieval women married Jesus in wedding ceremo…

‘Religious Freedom’ Rally Sets Stage for 1st Amendment Collision

By Sarah Posner

…on of policy to bend to the deeply held religious beliefs of a particular religious denomination is exactly what the Establishment Clause prohibits. The Stand Up for Religious Freedom rallies emphasized the Free Exercise Clause and their own “religious freedom,” but they ignore, most certainly not by accident, the principle upon which Judge Stearns’ decision rests: “[t]o insist that the government respect the separation of church and state is not…

The Quixotic Task of Debunking David Barton

By Paul Harvey

…ith detachment and “avoid tendentiousness.” Barton, who is obsessed with Poststructuralists and Deconstructionists, would not appear to have reason to worry about that with these reviewers, who write with a calm, measured voice and have created a website to update and fact-check their own material. Lies, Damned Lies, and Damned Misleading Lies As the poster child for tendentiousness, Barton makes easy pickings for dispassionate truth-seekers like…

Prisoners In the Hands of an Angry God: A Conversation About Religion and Reform

By Andrew Aghapour and Stephanie Gaskill

…to religion? It promises that people are predictable, even though, for the most part, they are not. Research like this presents the possibility that people can be easily classified, and that political messages can be targeted accordingly. These studies are attractive because they claim to pinpoint the one reason people support or oppose particular policies. This would be a boon for activists on either side of an issue. Who wouldn’t want to know th…

Warships, Animals, Pubs Eligible For Blessings From Church of England, But Not Same-Sex Couples; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…pointed and wounded. He said that in his home nation of Nigeria the single most pressing issue around human sexuality was the criminalisation of homosexuality. “The struggle for the legal, social, spiritual and physical safety of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters is our issue in Nigeria and other places in Africa,” he said. “The prophetic task for African Anglicans is to denounce violence… that (is) supported by members of our communities a…

What do the January 6 Commission, Covid Deaths and Gun Massacres All Have in Common? God’s Chosen

By John Stoehr

…The Democrats can’t possibly have my best interest in mind, because the Democrats stand for rules and laws that can be used to take this country away from me, a country that was given to God’s chosen. The Democrats and their calls for commonsense must therefore be opposed at all costs, even if the cost of refusing to wear a face mask means a terrible death by Covid. The shooting massacres The shooting massacre in San Jose, which killed nine peopl…

Now That ‘Serial’ is Over: 2014’s Best Podcasts about Religion

By Andrew Aghapour

…ingness to embed jarring stories within rich and chaotic sonic landscapes. Most episodes are short and sweet. Get started with “The Grandmother and the Vine of the Dead,” which was Slate’s pick for the 25th best podcast episode of all time. After that check out “A Goddamn Missionary,” an empathetic vignette of a Bipolar Disorder sufferer and religious figure, and “Do Crows Mourn Their Dead?”, a mind-bending tale of creepy human masks and the “caco…

Is Twitter Doing Enough to Remove Extremist Content? An Ex-Employee Weighs In

By Sofi Hersher

…ned by ISIS in the recent past, and as such feel perhaps more acutely than most the urgency of these issues. Twitter is tackling solvable problems where they can. I believe that as a culture we need to approach this issue on two fronts: we must continue the practical, on-the-ground conversation of how to remove illegal, hateful, or violent speech from social media quickly and at scale, while continuing to consider why this is done and how it is ju…

Turkish Police Move Against Activists Who Defied Pride Ban; And More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ion and protection of the rights of LGBT people. The Commonwealth, made up mostly of nations that were once part of the British Empire, has accredited the Commonwealth Equality Network, “the first LGBTI-focused organization to be officially accredited by the Commonwealth.” Pink News reports that “at least 36 of the 53 Commonwealth member states criminalise homosexuality.” The International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia released…

Mike Johnson isn’t Just Your Average Christian Right Avatar — He’s Influenced by Fringe Movements Unfamiliar to Most Political Analysts

By Annika Brockschmidt

…the Speaker’s office became a possibility, Johnson has kept mum about the most controversial issues. Fortunately, he’s left a decades-long trail that leaves no doubt as to who the third most powerful man in the U.S. is. In his inaugural speech as Speaker, Johnson was crystal clear about what drives him, claiming that only divine providence could have enabled him to assume the second place in line to the presidency: “I don’t believe there are any…