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Is Army’s New “Humanist” Designation Just Semantic Hooey?

By Elizabeth Drescher

…aplaincy for service members with non-religious beliefs and practices. The new faith code is significant in a number of ways. First, for Bradley and Humanist service members, it means that their existential disposition and associated practices are designated in their military records with language not shaped primarily in opposition to traditional religious designations. “‘Atheist’ says only what I’m not,” Bradley explained. “‘Humanist is what I am…

Naked Jihad

By Kate Blanchard

…“Do I look oppressed to you?” or “Nudity DOES NOT liberate me and I DO NOT need saving.” A number of commenters in the group, in fact, seem to think that Femen members are the ones who are oppressed. I myself have experienced these events as something of a roller coaster ride. As someone temperamentally shy about my body, I was both horrified and impressed first by Amina’s courageous statement, and later by the Femen protesters. But I also feared…

American Sin: Why Pope Francis’ Mercy is Not Our Mercy

By Kaya Oakes

…nship with people in prisons,” Francis says, “precisely because of my awareness of being a sinner.” The pope sees imprisonment as a matter of convenience for many nations who prefer to condemn people rather than offer them opportunities: “Sometimes we prefer to shut a person in prison for his whole life rather than trying to rehabilitate him and helping him find his place in society.” For all his talk of sinfulness, however, Francis’ vision of the…

The Progress of Christ in Commercial America: A Review of Chris Lehmann’s The Money Cult

By Peter Laarman

…be a fly on the wall during a private conversation between Lehmann and Finney partisan Marilynne Robinson.) And, finally, a long chapter given over to a detailed exposition of the plot of the “Left Behind” books by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins delivered just too much of a muchness to suit this particular reader. These quibbles aside, Lehmann has given us a sobering spiritual biography of a ceaselessly striving people—the powerful tribe of America…

‘Cult’ Is an Inaccurate, Unhelpful and Dangerous Label for Followers of Trump, QAnon, and 1/6

By Catherine Wessinger

…isseminated by powerful media representatives on Fox News and One American News Network (OANN), along with a not insignificant number of elected members of Congress. A great deal of the concern on the part of white people is over their potential loss of status in America. This concern is being expressed in current Trumpist Republican efforts to curb access to voting by people of color and the social panic being fomented about “Critical Race Theory…

Religion and Other Animals

By Paul Waldau

…ly indicate that an astonishing number of people—in some cases more than ninety-nine percent—hold their dog or cat to be a “family member.” Communities of faith are among the institutions that are most responsive to the complex connections between humans and other animals. One increasingly finds that contemporary religious communities have reinstituted the ancient practice known often as “blessing of the animals.” Some communities of faith are qui…

No Conspiracy Theories Needed: Abortion Foes Cry Racism

By Kathryn Joyce

…providers are targeting black and Latino populations, and have leafleted inner-city neighborhoods with denunciations of “Klan Parenthood,” juxtaposing images of lynchings and aborted fetuses with the slogan “lynching is for amateurs.” The argument’s popularity is climbing, spurring numerous rallies, publications, and organizations devoted to spreading word of abortion providers’ supposedly racist motives. Indeed, Rep. Franks, the lead sponsor of t…

Evangelical Pastor Argues for Full LGBT Inclusion: “I Think It’s Inevitable”

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…this because that would stigmatize a vulnerable group of people—and we’ve never done that on any other moral question, so I decided to write a letter. You said you’ve gotten to know some LGBT people over the years. How did that change your thinking? Growing up in the ’50s and ’60s in Detroit, I didn’t know any gay people who were out, so it was all undercover and I was just naïve. As a younger pastor, I was in a renewalist community and the gay p…

Islamic Intellectual Leadership at a Crossroads

By Amina Wadud

…the world of ideas in any way, but in particular in such a way that everyone benefits from the contributions, then we also contribute to Islam. This week, Tariq Ramadan wrote a piece for the Guardian lamenting the constraints of being described as a “Muslim intellectual and scholar.” It was the same as being assigned a pre-determined category which must speak about certain topics or his intentions are suspect. Among the topics he mentioned: secul…

Lessons from the Defeat of the Oklahoma Personhood Bill

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…fore the anticipated floor fight. Well, there was a fight, but SB-1433 was never heard, and now the deadline has expired. In the aftermath, it seems to me that two factors contributed to the bill’s defeat: 1) Deep disagreement, between the personhood movement and more mainstream pro-life Oklahoma voters and legislators, on the advisability of amendments to the bill; and 2) The development of ill will between the personhood lobby and the Republican…