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Pledging Virginity to Dad: A New Doc Explores the World of ‘Purity Balls’

By Jessica Valenti

…e that I didn’t buy into gender stereotypes. For every doll, I also had a truck. For every tea set, I got a sword. My father, in particular, took an interest in ensuring I was as well-rounded as possible. He bought me chemistry sets and explained atoms to me. When I complained that I was too little to do anything, we built a robot together. Yes, a robot. As I watched Virgin Tales, a Swiss documentary about purity balls—dances where young girls ple…

Mexico’s War on Saint Death

By Joseph Laycock

…st every town on the Mexican border. Devotees leave offerings of flowers, fruit, tequila, rum, and tobacco. Immigrants crossing the border illegally have been found with icons of the saint. While no one is certain where the movement originated, some have speculated that Vatican II deprived Mexican Catholics of devotional practices, causing new traditions to be invented. Others believe Santa Muerte is the product of hybridity: a Catholicized incarn…

Anti-Contraception Activists Claim Their Suits are Last Resort to Undermine Health Care

By Sarah Posner

…gion clauses. Similar claims have been rejected by state supreme courts in New York and California, and many constitutional experts believe they will not fare any better in federal court. That has not stopped anti-contraception activists from continuing to litigate these claims in the court of public opinion as the suits go forward. Americans United for Life, one of the leading purveyors of the falsehood that the ACA funds abortion coverage, sent…

Personhood Activists Regroup as “Next Civil Rights Movement”

By Sarah Posner

…rld ignited the actual civil rights movement. Last year, House Republican crusader Chris Smith suggested creating a new protected class entitled to equal protection of the law: immaturity. And at a presidential candidate forum in South Carolina a few months ago, Manhattan Declaration author Robert George stunned even the GOP hopefuls with his question about whether, as president, they would “propose to Congress appropriate legislation pursuant to…

Packed with Threats of Political Violence, Media Largely Ignore the NAR’s ‘Million Women’ Rally in DC

By Frederick Clarkson

…Women event.] NPR thoughtfully discussed its significance in advance. The New York Times’ coverage didn’t nearly convey the significance and reach of the event or mention the New Apostolic Reformation let alone notice the implicit threats of violence against presidential candidate Kamala Harris. The rest of the national media had nothing. The exorcist Jonathan Cahn, a Messianic Rabbi and bestselling novelist set the stage for Ché Ahn’s decree (9:…

Bill Mill-ennialism: Arkansas’ End Times Politics May Be Coming to a State Near You

By Frederick Clarkson

…st of the end times. It was the worst of the end times. It was the age of Trump. It was 2019. Trump was compared with the greatest of God’s biblical champions. Things would never be the same. The Christian Right, animated by a Dominionist-driven Christian Nationalism, gathered strength as the criminally inclined president bestowed grift and glory to many of his followers—while delivering on the policy promises he’d made. Some called him Cyrus. Oth…

Satan May Provide a Comforting Story in Times of Crisis, But it Comes With a Price

By Reyhan Durmaz

…ing out of their self-inflicted isolation. Reno’s initial attempt to blame New York’s “demonic vibe” on those who satanically place life over “dignity and beauty” (that is, on those who choose to stay at home and not contribute to the economy) might be discredited as a familiar attempt on the part of the bourgeoisie to shame the proletariat into returning to the factory floors. But such discourse also effectively classifies us into good citizens a…

Virgins and Vampire Worship: The Religion of Twilight

By Linda Kay Klein

…, for, ahem, “research purposes.” Packed into a sold-out theater in one of New York City’s busiest neighborhoods, I raised my head above the mayhem to get a look at the crowd. Much to my surprise, I didn’t see a single “Bite Me: Vampires Only Please” t-shirt. There were no creepy vampire contacts; no corsets; no capes; even the eyeliner was tastefully applied. I wondered: Where have all the Twi-hards gone? Suddenly, wolf-man Jacob appeared on scre…

Rick Perry’s Jesus Imperative: A Report from Saturday’s Mega-Rally

By Sarah Posner

…ording to her website, West also considers Mormonism, the emergent church, new age spirituality, word of faith, homosexuality, and more to be unbiblical.) In the NAR, she particularly identified Mike Bickle of the International House of Prayer, who played a big role in The Response. “[T]hese people are what the Bible calls ‘false prophets’… not true Christians,” West wrote. When I asked Garlow about West’s complaint, he shrugged it off, saying tha…

Year-End Best Books in Race and Religion in American History

By Paul Harvey

…ven in an American society burdened by slavery and racism since its birth. New World A-Coming: Black Religion and Racial Identity During the Great Migration Judith Weisenfeld NYU Press February 2017 And finally, Judith Weisenfeld’s New World A-Coming: Black Religion and Racial Identity During the Great Migration is, I think, an instant classic. It resurrects worlds of black American new religious movements from World War I to the mid-twentieth cen…