Religion Dispatches
…to reconnect with younger viewers, it is likely that God TV’s debut in the United States will send channel surfers in the Alecs’ direction.” Recently God TV has been broadcasting live a healing revival of the Canadian evangelist Todd Bentley, from Lakeland, Florida, which Charisma dubbed the “Lakeland Healing Outpouring.” During the revival, which has been ongoing for more than a month, Wendy Alec claimed to have received a prophecy from God that…
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…o continued the controversial marital practice. According to the Apostolic United Brethren, they were charged with continuing the “fundamentals” of the faith—namely polygamy—after the LDS Church essentially brought an end to the practice in 1904. Over the past two years, the legal and criminal status of polygamy in the US has once again been at the center of public attention. At the start of the 2020 Utah legislative session, Senator Deidre Hender…
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…g religious within its content, yet a conservative Christian reader in the United States today is likely going to see religious significance in the article nonetheless. Protestants consuming media about substance use a century ago similarly saw significant religious implications whether journalists wrote about it that way or not. The antidrug campaigns of Rear Admiral Richmond Pearson Hobson, an influential Prohibitionist, short-term congressman,…
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…and the worldview of the most politically consequential demographic in the United States today. White evangelical Christians wield their disproportionate political power via their domination in the Republican Party, and 81% of them voted for Donald Trump in 2016. They remain his core group of support, standing behind him during his impeachment, and they are a key to his re-election bid in 2020. The evangelical scholar Mark Noll has criticized the…
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…m” but does not explicitly condemn the most virulent form of racism in the United States and the one that the Southern Baptist Convention has had historic ties to: white supremacy. Instead, as Andre Johnson pointed out just this week on RD, we get three condemnations of theories and worldviews that are thinly-veiled attacks on critical race theory. RESOLVED, That we reaffirm our agreement with historic, biblically-faithful Southern Baptist condemn…
Read More…rby Alachua is home to home of the largest Hare Krishna communities in the United States). In addition to participating in this event, the Gainesville Muslim Community is promoting a series of events that began on September 8. On September 11, the Gainesville Muslim Initiative will sponsor a free meal and a blood drive in the center of town and then an evening program featuring a variety of religious and community leaders. Muslim leaders are askin…
Read More…rial cooperation agreements, recognizing the ordinations of ministers within the other denominations. “It’s almost like dominoes,” Adee said, “It used to be the exception, but it’s becoming the rule. The pressure is now on the United Methodists.” Currently, the United Methodist Church allows gay and lesbian ministers, but only if they are celibate and not open about their sexual orientation. “This is an ethical challenge and an invitation,” Adee s…
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…as elected governor, she affiliated with a third church, where she attends services while in the state capitol, the Juneau Christian Center, another Pentecostal church. In March 2009, Juneau Christian Center is scheduled to host a prayer evening organized by Christians United for Israel, headed up by Pastor John Hagee (yes, the one McCain had to distance himself from after a sermon surfaced in which Hagee said Hitler was a tool God used to force J…
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…vent. He has also written extensively about anti-abortion terrorism in the United States. In 1997, Clarkson wrote Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy (Common Courage Press), one of the earliest books about the conservative evangelical movement which has become an integral part of the American political landscape. More recently, Clarkson, along with blogger Bruce Wilson, founded Talk2Action, an interactive blog covering…
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…rs, with 61% of Republican respondents saying they supported declaring the United States a Christian nation. Christian nationalism is having a moment. Scholars and journalists are signaling its dangers in articles, op-eds, and books. Preachers and politicians are encouraging their flocks to take on the identity proudly as a way to blend their faith and politics. Yet, even if Christian nationalism has become part of common parlance over the last ha…
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