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From Shofars to Hammers: The Spiritual Warriors of MAGA are ‘ReAwakening’ to Political Violence

By Mark Clatterbuck

For two days in late October, I attended Clay Clarke’s MAGA-driven ReAwaken America Tour near my home in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Keynote speakers included a predictable Who’s Who of Trump surrogates, including Michael Flynn, Mike Lindell, Roger Stone, and Eric Trump. The real driver of the event, however, was the lineup of dominionist, charismatic, Christian pastors, prophets, and lay leaders who were there to openly declare war on their…

Watching Preachers’ Daughters Right After the Boston Bombings While Teaching a Class on Augustine’s Confessions

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…Nova—what the driest spot on Earth is, and quizzed me on that bit of trivia at dinner. He’s making his own friends, liking some subjects in school and not liking others, and beginning to think about what he’d like to be when he grows up. (A naval engineer who makes clocks in his spare time, since you asked.) Obviously it wasn’t just parents of eight-year-olds who felt sick last week when they learned that one of the Boston marathon victims w…

How Does an Atheist Come to Believe in God?: An Interview with Jacob Needleman

By Lisa Webster

…igious. What does he mean by that? JN: Yes it’s an important question. And apart from what James says, it’s a general question. Religious emotion is sometimes understood as an ordinary emotion about a religious entity, or a religious theme, or a religious object, or religious teaching. In other words, I can be excited at a football game by the San Francisco 49ers, and I can, with the same quality of energy, the same part of myself, be similarly ex…

Will Catholic Voters Support LGBT Rights in Washington State?

By Joanna Brooks

…Polls suggest that Referendum 74 has an edge among Washington voters. Then again, four years ago in California, polls predicted Proposition 8 was headed for defeat. I spoke today with Kathy Morefield, one of the founders of Washington Catholics for Marriage Equality, to get a sense for the role of faith in the campaign. What’s the feeling on the ground like in Washington right now? I think we are feeling pretty hopeful, but it’s so hard to tell wh…

Vatican Considers ‘Disordered’ Language; HBO Doc on LGBT Persecution in Russia; Nigerian Bishop Shifts on Anti-Gay Law; Arson at ‘Open Mosque’ in South Africa; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…hat the bishops needed to hear. Indeed, even some of those who are already aware of the harmful effects and warning against them, may not realize the depth of the damage that is done. They may understand that it is one of the factors that turns many our community away from the Catholic Church, as noted in the press briefing – but do they understand that it is also quite literally, destructive of lives, especially young lives?” Debernardo also dete…

Everything You Think You Know About the Dark Ages is Wrong

By Nancy Marie Brown

What inspired you to write The Abacus and the Cross? I was introduced to The Scientist Pope through an act of grace. Writing my previous book, The Far Traveler, about an adventurous Viking woman, I found myself making an imaginary pilgrimage to Rome just after the year 1000. Wondering which pope (if any) Gudrid the Far-Traveler had met, I discovered Gerbert of Aurillac, Pope Sylvester II. I was astonished. Nothing in my many years of reading abo…

Why The Book of Mormon (the Musical) is Awesomely Lame

By Jared Farmer

The Book of Mormon cleaned up at this year’s Tony Awards, winning nine of the 14 awards it was nominated for, including Best Musical. But tonight’s success is hardly unexpected, capping off, as it does, an extraordinary season of critical adulation. What’s going on? Why has a good-not-great religious satire from the creators of South Park received rapturous praise from the whole canon of media tastemakers? It may be true that The Book of Mormon i…

‘It’s Time to Defend our Children Outside of the Womb’: Pray Vote Stand Connects Anti-Abortion and Anti-Trans Messages

By PRA Staff

…reedom Center and The Leadership Institute dot the spacious hallways. With available seating for a couple thousand, the sanctuary was sparse on Thursday morning—maybe 300 people in total. As we choose our seats, volunteers usher us to the front section “for the cameras and for the security.” Speaking of security, armed law enforcement lurk in the hallways and at the entrances, guns at hips. Tony Perkins welcomes Georgia Governor Brian Kemp to the…

South Dakota Bill Could Legalize Killing Abortion Doctors

By Lauri Lebo

…-word it before a vote or drop it entirely.” It’s disturbing the number of assaults on women’s reproductive freedom that have taken place in the past couple months, from bills that would deny private insurance companies from providing abortion coverage to congressional Republicans’ proposed defunding of Planned Parenthood’s family services, which would include cancer screenings. But none have been as stomach-lurching as a South Dakota bill that co…

Two and a Half Men Child Star Calls Show “Filth”

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…levision show for which I am not the target demographic and have thus not managed to watch more than ten minutes of) apparently had a religious conversion that prompted him to call the show “filth.” But then he apologized for it. You know when Jones started working on Two and a Half Men? When he was ten. Do you know what it’s like to be a child star? No, neither do I. But the few semi-public figures that I do know—who are mostly religion-nerd-famo…