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Dear White Evangelicals: A Black Square Ain’t Gonna Cut It

By Jhas Williams

…h their black brothers and sisters in Christ” is at best, laughable. At worst it stirs up old trauma that I and others who share my experience have spent small fortunes in therapy and other personal work to undo. And in some sad sense, we’re the fortunate ones. Others have unintentionally internalized this hatred which manifested later in a variety of self-destructive behaviors. It’s the price so many have had to pay for the seeds of self-hatred t…

Jesus Christ and Super Stars: How The Holy Rolled Mainstream in Pop Music

By Alana Massey

…ands like Jars of Clay essentially sang praise anthems while an angstier West Coast nouveau evangelical ethos emerged in bands like P.O.D. On the other side of this spectrum were bands that positioned themselves as anti-Christian, though even their blasphemies came up short. Marilyn Manson scared the daylights out of children and parents alike in his 1990s heyday, but his most controversial album, Antichrist Superstar, was little more than a play…

Debate Heats Up Over “Francis Effect”

By Patricia Miller

Mitt Romney’s delusional 2012 pollsters got nothing on apologists for last week’s Pew Poll that found no real “Francis effect” from the pope’s first year. According to Daniel Burke at CNN.com in a lengthy, mostly anecdotal piece, “there’s more way than one to measure the pontiff’s influence” than, say, actual metrics like the number of people going to mass or returning to the church. According to Burke, you just have to “ask around” Boston to fin…

8: The Mormon Proposition Gets It Right

By Joanna Brooks

…polygamy days of the late nineteenth century and reaffirms some of the oldest and least favorable public stereotypes of Mormons as an insular, secretive, manipulative people. During the campaign season, many of us who were Mormon and supported marriage equality found ourselves in the otherworldly situation of trying to communicate to outsiders the magnitude of what we saw happening inside our Church, only to be met—for the most part—with disinte…

Americans Say Religion is “Losing Influence”

By Diane Winston

…internecine squabbles and financial woes. But thirty years later, they’re still standing. Did we get it wrong or did we just forget to look behind the headlines? What’s it like to be a Lutheran in northern Minnesota? How has Vacation Bible School at a rural Arkansas Baptist church changed since the ’60s? Who are the women behind the biggest Methodist congregation in Cleveland? I want to know more about the people who believe religion to be a posi…

The Best the Largest Progressive Jewish Org Could Come Up With?

By Jay Michaelson

…t in the age-old teachings of the Jewish tradition (e.g., “You shall not mistreat a stranger, nor oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 22:21)) but in more recent, and less universal, Jewish experiences. Ironically, this choice is at once too particular, and not particular enough. It excludes many Jews, and perhaps deliberately depicts Jewishness as a secular, American immigration narrative that is accessible to non-J…