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A Twisted Love Story: How American Evangelicals Helped Make Putin’s Russia and How Russia Became the Darling of the American Right

By Katherine Kelaidis

…NATO is a good idea or not. How did this ever happen? The answer, as with most things wrong with the contemporary GOP, lies in the party’s almo*]}*st complete takeover by evangelicals that began during the Nixon era. Throughout the Cold War, the official atheism of Communist countries and the suppression of religion behind the Iron Curtain became a rallying cry for the American Right in general and American evangelicals in particular, who made it the…

How a Ruling for Masterpiece Cakeshop Could Embolden White Nationalists

By Sunnivie Brydum

…book Religious Freedom: The Contested History of an American Ideal. “Those most powerful in society have always been able to wield religious freedom arguments for their own interests,” Wenger explained in a recent conversation with RD. And although conservative Christians (particularly white evangelicals and conservative Catholics) are going to great lengths to paint themselves as a minority oppressed by creeping secularism and liberalism, “they n…

Proposition 8—the Rematch?

By Bill Berkowitz

…to do that. He has called us to be faithful. And that we can do.” From its modest beginnings—an office at his “kitchen table” in 1977—“to a national platform for traditional family values,” Wildmon’s AFA has been on the frontline of the nation’s “culture wars.” Over the years, it has grown and prospered. In his report-back to supporters, Wildmon pointed out some of the organization’s successes during the past year. He noted that the AFA had grown…

Do Atheists Belong in the Interfaith Movement?

By Chris Stedman

…re is some disconnect when those who criticize the interfaith movement the most also seem to have had little to no actual experience with it. I could be wrong, but I’d be surprised if someone who had been involved in interfaith work would suggest, as prominent atheist blogger P.Z. Myers did, that it “cheerfully and indiscriminately embrace[s] every faith without regard for content.” Present in almo*]}*st every atheist blog I’ve read opposed to interfa…

Conservative Christianity and Its Discontents

By Karl Giberson and Randall J. Stephens

…ity figures seemingly aligned in condemnation, and unavailable when needed most. But the so-called “reparative therapy” such youth are steered toward has been shown to be not only utterly ineffective but also psychologically damaging. The American Psychological Association has stated definitively that “homosexuality is not an illness. It does not require treatment and is not changeable.” The American Medical Association and the American Academy of…

Are We Entering the End Times for Mainline Seminaries?

By Elesha Coffman

…duate school of theology, Andover-Newton, would sell its campus, phase out most of its faculty, and merge a remnant with Yale Divinity School. It is not news that the Protestant mainline in America has been declining since the 1970s. Yet markers of the tradition’s slide continue to make headlines. Institutional change of this magnitude comes as a body blow to seminary constituencies. Tenured faculty lose their jobs or, if they’re lucky, merely the…

White Evangelical Leaders Already Distancing Themselves from the “81-Percenters”

By Neil J. Young

…trageous bid for the presidency, Donald Trump has upended many norms of American politics. But the disavowal by evangelical leaders of their political influence after 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for the winning Trump-Pence ticket may be one of Election 2016’s most revealing features. The desire of some evangelical leaders to distance their faith from the atrocity of a Trump presidency is surely understandable, but doing so after white e…

Trump the Totem: Like Other Fascist Leaders, Trump has Turned from Man to Symbol — And That’s the Danger

By Robert P. Jones

…ad of a Republican fundraiser event in Peoria, Johnson said something even more disturbing in his continued defense of Trump. Trump, Johnson said, “is not just our nominee, not just an individual running for president. I think now he’s seen as a symbol, a symbol of one who is willing to fight back against that corruption, the deep state and all the rest.” Given any number of other statements by Johnson, this comment may seem unremarkable. But the…

Right Wingers Say “Gay” is Out, But Try Putting “Unnatural Vice” On a Bumper Sticker

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…ices” of their own, like, perhaps, calling long meetings to plan out how best to demonize other human beings. Remember, it was Paul who told the Ephesians to put away all “bitterness and wrath and anger and slander” and to be “tenderhearted” with others (Ephesians 4:31-32). No matter, because that massive 1.7 percent of the population is going to be the ruination of a religious right’s person to be a homophobe. “What are going to be the rights of…

Pope Francis Has Painted Himself into a Corner on Women Deacons

By Mary E. Hunt

…iver some response. Francis has been to enough meetings to know that the fastest way to slow something down is to appoint a committee. So he did, knowing that this slippery slope to women’s ordination is virtually inevitable unless the church wants to persist in contradiction. My guess is that this matter will get fast-tracked for several reasons. First, the Vatican knows it has a huge market-share problem related directly to its treatment of wome…