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Anti-LGBT Culture Warriors On The March; More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…it. A social media campaign using the hashtag #WeNeedToTalk to promote the World Youth Forum being held in Egypt November 4-10 was hijacked by activists to draw attention to the country’s crackdown on LGBT people and on civil society in general: The conference’s organizers had hoped the hashtag would encourage interaction among the participants ahead of the forum and promote Egypt as a safe tourist destination. Instead, the activists posted images…

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

By Peter Laarman

…igious sentiment lined up on this question on account of my own efforts in New York to call out then-mayor Rudy Giuliani’s especially cruel version of “welfare reform” during the Clinton years, once Clinton had muscled through his Reagan-inflected “personal responsibility” bill in 1996. I was roundly denounced by ostensibly progressive clergy colleagues—and by several ostensibly liberal newspaper columnists—for getting my morals wrong; these disti…

Refusing Religion, Claiming the Future: A Roundtable Discussion on “The Nones Are Alright”

By Peter Laarman

…use I don’t want young people to miss out on the good stuff that the old structure could sometimes deliver: the heart-stopping magnificence of a well-done traditional service, the kneeling at the altar with hundreds of others to receive the eucharist, the mighty cloud of witnesses vibe, all of that. Experiences like these are more than merely aesthetic to someone like me; they are also formative. So I guess I am just a bit anxious about where we’r…

Unreasonable Doubt: Vincent Bugliosi Defends Agnosticism

By Eric Reitan

…ace of that uncertainty. But, despite his promise to contribute something truly new to the God debates, Bugliosi treats agnosticism as nothing more than the recognition that when it comes to God’s existence, we just don’t know. One hardly needs a book to demonstrate that no one has a knock-down argument for—or against—God’s existence. In reflecting on the ultimate nature of reality we’re dealing with mysteries that transcend our grasp. Or as theo…

Sin is Not a Crime: A Conversation with Patrick Cheng

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…better way to think about these doctrines. He does that by defining seven new deadly sins and seven new graces, all seen through the lens of the life and teachings of a queer Christ. Cheng took time recently to talk with Religion Dispatches’ Candace Chellew-Hodge about his new book, and his ancient model. LGBT Christians love to talk about grace, but the topic of sin can be painful for us. Why do we need to talk about sin now? In some ways I fe…

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

By Peter Laarman

…inism’s overall impact in the late 19th century pales in comparison to the runaway impact of Russell Conway’s “acres of diamonds” preaching. He demonstrates in a similar way how the postwar flowering of a potent culture of anti-union conservatism among Southern California’s evangelical and parachurch movements was entirely self-created and not simply the result of solicitation or manipulation by that era’s business leaders. Say it again: religion…

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

By Eric C. Miller

…he Vatican articulated growing support for unions in encyclicals such as Rerum Novarum, many a prelate worried that they might prove a gateway out of the Church and into the clutches of godless radicalism. This tale of churchly opposition to the early labor movement is a relatively familiar one. What’s new in Union Made are the stories of printers, glovemakers, blacksmiths, seamstresses, and the like, who insisted that trade unionism was fully com…

Behind New Zealand Terror Attack Is a Problem Bigger Than Islamophobia

By Murali Balaji

…ansition. It’s growing in our own backyards, too, and not just because of Trumpism and social media. To blame Trump, Facebook posts, and rambling manifestos for carnage overlooks our failure to confront the grievances fueling white Christian nationalism. Assuming secular values and pluralism will win out in the end does nothing to prevent the ideological violence of Christian nationalism from spreading. Just as Wahhabism spread as a grievance-base…

New Zealand Passes Marriage Equality

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…to answer religious objections to marriage equality should take notes from New Zealand’s MP Maurice Williamson. Before the New Zealand Parliament voted Tuesday 77-44 to approve marriage equality—the 14th country to do so—Williamson took to the podium to deliver a wry, yet compassionate, response to the religious people he’s met who opposed the measure. I’ve had a reverend in my local electorate say the ‘gay onslaught will start the day this law is…

Hitchens Debates Conservative Evangelical: Nothing Happens

By Eric Reitan

…debating skills. But this changes little. Whether their toolkits contain crude instruments or state-of-the-art power tools, the objective remains the same: to secure victory for their own view. Preaching to Their Respective Choirs Victory means you don’t need to modify your position—and the nice thing about the sort of contest Hitchens and Wilson pursue is that so long as both parties are well-matched, and so long as they both manage to get in a…