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Welcome to the Shari’ah Conspiracy Theory Industry

By Sarah Posner

…Steve Emerson’s nonprofit Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation funneled nearly $3.4 million to a related for-profit entity (an arrangement that raised eyebrows of tax experts), but that other “experts” in spreading Islamophobia draw big salaries from their nonprofits. Other frequent witnesses in Islamophobic documentaries, including Woolsey, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, have h…

When God and Gender Mix: New Book Examines the Southern Holiness Movement

By Colin Chapell

…you had to leave out? Historians always want to include every interesting anecdote and vignette from their research. We spend so much time in the archives, getting to know our subjects, and often working with very, very personal letters, diaries and family papers. There were plenty of personal details that I thought could have added more “personality” to some of the folks that I talked about, but would have been distracting to the larger points th…

More Than Big Hair and Money: Jim, Tammy Faye and the Media “Holy Wars” of the 80s

By John Wigger

…e and fall were connected. How does deep religious devotion become so entwined with money, sex, and celebrity on a Hollywood scale? A short synopsis might help: Jim and Tammy started the PTL network with half a dozen employees in a former furniture store in 1974. By 1986 PTL had annual revenues of $129 million, 2500 employees, a 2300-acre theme park, Heritage USA, and a private satellite network that reached into fourteen million homes in the US….

The Only Common Denominator of American Conservatism is Anti-Blackness

By Yannick Marshall

…atism is not an innocent bystander that just happens to be found at the scene of nearly every anti-Black political act. Conservatism is a hat that Negrophobes with good jobs put on to move undetected in a society that refuses to overturn the racist order but considers the N-word to be taboo. Those who’ve shown historical hostility to Black life are invited to the table to determine our fates as long as they name their Negrophobia “the conservative…

How the Study of Evangelicalism Has Blinded Us to the Problems in Evangelical Culture

By Christopher D. Cantwell

…hat that term means to them. There’s a certain irony here, in that an Anglophone movement that once saw itself as uniquely positioned to save the world is now looking to the globe to salvage its reputation. ‘Evangelical’ as metaphor Noll, Marsden, and Bebbington have each retired in recent years, making Evangelicals something of a testament to their centrality to the field. The text concludes with a new essay from each editor that seeks to steward…

Modern Vampires: Your Neighbors and Spouses

By Joseph Laycock

…community, all of them female, describe moments in which they were frightened or made to feel uncomfortable. One of them even employed a personal bodyguard. However, I never once had even a vague sense of danger during this research. There is a trope in American horror of the dedicated researcher who uncovers too much. The power of this trope played out in 1996, when a reporter in New York vanished while doing a story on the vampire community. As…

Travolta Airlifts Scientology, Supplies, to Haiti

By Becky Garrison

…g “pastoral care.” Their counseling services included promoting their hotline number on Fox News under the title “National Mental Health Assistance.” In 2002, Tom Cruise and executives from Scientology’s FASE (Foundation for the Advancement in Science and Education) launched “Downtown Medical” (also called “New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project”). This facility offered FDNY firefighters and other recovery workers the opportunity to partak…

Why Anti-Gay Bullying is a Theological Issue

By Cody J. Sanders

…19-year-old Raymond Chase. Today, it is very clear to me that profound sadness and stunned silence is no longer a suitable, appropriate, or adequate response. From Lamentation to Indignation My sadness began to change into something different with each successive news story about another gay teen hanging himself, shooting himself, or jumping off a bridge. As I saw the faces of these young victims and imagined the family and friends left to cope w…

Americans Say Religion is “Losing Influence”

By Diane Winston

…country? As a cub reporter, I wrote about the greying mainline, their 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…

Sacred&Profane: The Living Dead

By Gary Laderman

…f electoral reckoning, this year’s presidential campaign has rattled the bones of the dead and awakened the spirits from the past, haunting the living in present times of war, economic turmoil, and environmental crisis. A stretch, you say? Unnecessarily morose, over-determined, overly-brooding commentary that profanes the sacrality of children’s fun and games, you think? Historians are not usually the life of the party, but history does shed light…