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In Historic Vote, Presbyterians to Allow LGBT Clergy

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…majority of the denomination’s 173 presbyteries voted to approve Amendment 10-A. The amendment removes language from the Presbyterian Book of Order – inserted in the late 1990s to prevent LGBT people from serving – that those called to be ministers, deacons, or elders are required to “live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman, or chastity in singleness.” The new language gives congregations the leeway they…

The Quiet Passing of Fundamentalist Mormon Prophet Lynn A. Thompson Suggests Polygamy Recognition Remains a Distant Hope

By Cristina Rosetti

…temples. Shortly after, the group officially incorporated as the Apostolic United Brethren (AUB). By 1970, the group had communities in Pinesdale, MT, as well as in Bluffdale and Rocky Ridge, UT. When Allred died in 1977, he was succeeded by his brother, Owen Allred, followed by LaMoine Jenson, the man he appointed as his successor and who served as the leader of the community until 2014. Thompson assumed leadership of the group following Jenson’s…

Pro- and Anti-Muslim Sentiment in Gainesville

By Julie Ingersoll

…king their followers to ignore what they are calling the “Dove Outreach not-a-church” and its “not-a-pastor,” whether he goes forward with his plan to burn Qur’ans or not. The community-building efforts of the Gainesville Muslim Community continue through the month, and will culminate in a community fast and shared meal on September 27. Pastor Johnson says he hopes the recent controversy will “have a silver lining with more and more people seeking…

What Fundamentalist Christian Fiction Can Teach Us About Our American Crisis

By Christopher Douglas

…of the fiction. In another article, Andrew Jacobs examines the strange sub-genre known as the “gospel thriller”—in which the discovery of a new first-century gospel about Jesus seems to threaten the Bible’s sacred power. This genre was invented by an evangelical author, whose novel featured a purported lost gospel that turned out to be a nefarious forgery intended to subvert Christianity—but the gospel thriller has many secular descendants. Other…

Is Religion Wrecking Our Air?

By Jay Wexler

…rticle in the New York Times, for instance, reported on the case of a three-year-old who suffered mercury poisoning when her family moved into a Rhode Island apartment that had been the site of ritual mercury use by a former tenant many years earlier. ### Excerpted from When God Isn’t Green: A World-Wide Journey to Places Where Religious Practice and Environmentalism Collide by Jay Wexler (Beacon Press, 2016). Reprinted with Permission from Beacon…

What Netanyahu Learned from Texas

By Sarah Posner

…away, or simply, passively, no longer care. American Jews predicate their support of Israel not only on ethnic solidarity and history, but on the idea that Israel and the United States share common democratic values.” If democratic-minded, anti-theocratic American Jews do walk away, who would be left to support Israel in the U.S., apart from the most ardent right-wing Jewish supporters of Israel? The Christian Zionists who think that America is a…

Attack on the US Capitol Has Many Journos Finally Taking White Evangelical Authoritarianism and Christian Nationalism Seriously

By Chrissy Stroop

…to normalize evangelical Trump support by deflecting blame from the inciter-in-chief. Their comments recall the aftermath of the white supremacist violence at the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, when Jeffress appeared on CBN asserting that “there is not a racist bone” in Trump’s body. Presenting Jeffress’s and Graham’s latest remarks in context makes their nakedly self-serving nature obvious, and Jervis, Ramirez, and Rui…

A New Book By Esteemed Sociologist Robert Wuthnow Struggles to Show ‘Why Religion is Good for American Democracy’

By Peter Laarman

…dy’s. To his credit, Wuthnow does take note of the way in which, during the 1980s and 1990s, the focus of traditional Catholic discourse around human dignity was increasingly transferred from concern for the dignity of the poor to concern for the fate of the “unborn.” He also takes note of how the language of victimhood—the endless whining about alleged anti-Christian persecution—became a central feature of Religious Right rhetoric during these de…

As Psychedelics Experience a Renaissance, Emory’s New Center for Psychedelics and Spirituality Seeks a Novel Approach

By Hollis Phelps

…without analyzing their history or their various sociopolitical valences. Religious studies scholars and philosophers could provide much needed perspective, here, which can only strengthen our understanding of psychedelics and their various uses. While the end-result of this so-called psychedelic renaissance still remains to be seen, the ECPS seems poised to make a significant contribution to it, especially in areas that have often been overlooke…

Addressing the Culture War Without Touching the Culture War

By Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins

…stian scholarship in the academy when they were young professors during the 1960s and 1970s. Their aim was to overcome this by providing powerful philosophical and historical arguments against the idea of secular neutrality and the privatization of religion. In many ways their interventions were successful, as the question is no longer the exclusion of religion from the public sphere, but to what degree it should be a part of the conversation. Rea…