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Rome Has Spoken and Rome Is Finished: The Vatican’s Sexual Abuse Summit ‘Failed Miserably’

By Mary E. Hunt

…y virtue of your moral role.” She recommended that the clerics turn over a new leaf with the new onslaught of information about the abuse of women in the church. This time, she counseled the institution to “play offense and not defense, as has happened in the case of the abuse of minors. It could be a great opportunity for the Church to take the initiative and be on the forefront of denouncing these abuses, which are not only sexual but also abuse…

Participant Discredits the Original Ex-Gay Study

By Warren Throckmorton

…dings with the 11 subjects (from page 1555, see below). Bussee was subject number two and Cooper was number one. Both Bussee and Cooper were rated as Kinsey 6 (exclusively homosexual) before change and a 0 (exclusively heterosexual) after change. Since there was no follow-up, this study has been used to support the proposition that gays could change to straight via religious mediation. For instance, not knowing any of this background at the time,…

Jonestown at 40: The Real Conspiracy Is More Disturbing Than the Theories

By Rebecca Moore

…e mass murder rather than collective suicide, as initially reported in the news media. While Scientology may have a stake in how this story is told, the series actually raises two important questions. First, how in fact did the residents of the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project—better known as Jonestown—die? While some journalists and theorists were among the first to ask this question, it’s just now coming to the fore in mainstream media analys…

Data-Mining Denominations: Same-Sex Marriage Edition

By Daniel Schultz

…people are by intensity, measured with the simple hack of subtracting the number of people Strongly Opposed to same-sex marriage from the number Strongly In Favor. Not surprisingly, since the Unitarian-Universalists only had 6 percent opposed, their position on the chart hardly budged at all. Other groups traveled a little more. Mainline Baptists, for example, strongly disapprove just a little more than they strongly approve. Evangelical Baptists…

Workers Once Forced the Social Gospel Into Churches—Can It Happen Again?

By Eric C. Miller

…RD’s Eric C. Miller spoke with Carter about his project, he had in mind a number of parallels between the late 1800s and the early 2000s. Then as now, inequality was on the rise as the rich became richer and the poor struggled to improve their lives. Then also as now, church attendance rates began to decline as congregants grew disaffected with Church leadership. In both cases, progressive Christians have questioned the Church’s dedication to soc…

Breivik’s Religious Pluralist Vision: A COEXIST Bumper Sticker Without the Crescent

By Michael J. Altman

…an with the violent attacks in Oslo. The full vision of his solution was a new utopian world order, free of Marxism, multiculturalism, and Islam, where the rest of the world’s religions and civilizations could tolerate one another. Breivik believed his actions would usher in a long war that would end with the deportation of Muslims and the eradication of Marxists in Europe. But his vision was bigger than just Europe. He saw a world where every civ…

Economy Yields Too Few Prophets

By Peter Laarman

…ecovery in Sight”) we now have more than five unemployed workers for every new job opening. And as of last month the actual number of workers in crisis is not the 14 million who are officially unemployed (as if that number were acceptable), but more like 29 million people, if you count people no longer looking or working at sharply reduced hours or taking big pay and benefit cuts. That is 18 percent of the total workforce and still rising. What’s…

Church and State in Japan: The Case of the Yasukuni Shrine

By Mark R. Mullins

…out to be part of the funeral business. Daigo’s wife is so offended by his new line of work that she flees back home to her own family. She is only won over when circumstances bring her into a family gathering where Daigo’s graceful skill and sensitive care of the deceased is experienced as a great comfort to the bereaved family. It has been over two decades since Juzo Itami’s Ososhiki (“The Funeral,” 1984) brought the issue of death and family re…

Cruz and the Evangelical Illusion

By Sarah Posner

…“We brought them with no expectations and we were highly pleased with the number who decided Ted is the right man to be of the president of the U.S.” When judging these statements (particularly the words “very diverse,” “significant standing” and “the number”), keep in mind that Barton is known (among evangelicals) for playing fast and loose with facts. Three years ago, the evangelical publisher Thomas Nelson halted publication of one of Barton’s…

Cafeteria Cockroaches and Synagogue-State Relations in Israel

By Shalom Goldman

…her Jewish denominations—Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, Jewish Renewal—are not recognized. They have no legal authority, cannot perform weddings, officiate at funerals, or certify a restaurant as kosher. At present there are a small number of Conservative and Reform Rabbis in Israel, but they receive no funds or recognition from the state. What they do receive is a heavy dose of contempt from the official Rabbinate. When non-Orthodox Rab…