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Even Tougher Questions to Ask Mormon Presidential Candidates

By Joanna Brooks

…spite the fact that Church founder Joseph Smith initially ordained African-American men. How were you raised to understand the Church’s priesthood ban, and how do you now view it? Was the LDS Church wrong to withhold priesthood from men of African descent? As members of a minority religion, Mormons like Romney and Huntsman have learned to be very pragmatic in the way they manage the relationship between personal faith and public decision-making….

Ritual Killing v. Factory Farming, or, Are There Roosters in Heaven?

By Meera Subramanian

…the sacrificial taking of human life, every Sunday, millions of mainstream Americans partake in a symbolic ingestion of blood and body that is so common in the Christian world that one forgets to use the word “cannibalism.” For the Catholics if not the Protestants, the magical process of transubstantiation makes the wafers and wine truly become the Body and Blood of Christ, and the symbol becomes, on the tongue of the beholder, quite literal. But…

Paranoia and the Progressive Press: A Response to WaPo’s Religion Columnist

By Peter Montgomery

…ure over which the right kind of Christians are meant to have dominion are business, government, media, arts and entertainment, education, the family, and religion. (Some folks rearrange the categories a bit to explicitly include the military.) The language has been used by Pentecostal leaders of the New Apostolic Reformation, a group that sees itself creating a new church and an army of spiritual warriors who will hasten the return of Christ by t…

“Ex-Gay” NPR Report Closets Mormon Side of the Story

By Joanna Brooks

…ilure of the NPR story to present an accurate picture of the religious and business motives of gay conversion programs, and Warren Throckmorton and Ted Cox have described the marginal, controversial practices of Wyler’s Journey into Manhood program. But to get the full story—the story NPR missed—it’s important to understand Wyler, Journey into Manhood, and gay conversion programs not as a health story but as part of a decades-long religious experi…

The Democratic Party is Not a Religion

By Gary Laderman

…many letter writers pointed out, “civil religion” has long been a part of American politics, evoked in the speeches of both Democratic and Republican presidents and leaders, aroused by the sight of the flag in all its symbolic glory for Americans of many stripes, and memorialized in the monuments to the dead—including military martyrs, victims of disasters, and political heroes. Additionally, Dems have been whipped into religious frenzies here an…

I Would Also Like a Splinter Scouting Organization, Please

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…find the case persuasive at all. Meanwhile, Girl Scouts USA is not in the business of dictating, in a theo-con or neo-con idiom, which things God hates and what things God approves of and why. That’s part of why it has the success and reach that it does. If the other were its mission, it would be a very different organization. So Girl Scouts USA isn’t going to stop what it does well simply because some people wish it were the organization that th…

Romney Braces for Perry Testosterone Challenge; Huntsman Reboots

By Joanna Brooks

…h engine optimization, people! Seriously!) Finally, I’m wondering if Jon Huntsman Jr., a Republican moderate who has made a career by strategically blending in, will adapt to this “aggressive” “contrast” business. Sad to say it, but I’d look for the former governor to schedule a nice, long motorcycle ride across the red rock deserts of southern Utah right after the Florida primaries….

Fix the Economy GOD’$ WAY: Dave Ramsey’s Great Christian Recovery

By Paul Harvey

…are in decline. The financial crash of 2008 was particularly good for his business and his expanding national reputation. While other popular financial talk shows (Clark Howard, for example) instruct listeners on the proper use of credit cards and how to manage reasonable levels of debt, Ramsey’s plan is based on the principle that God abhors debt while rewarding the investor who emulates the tortoise rather than the hare. He scorns get-rich-quic…

Ralph Reed’s Group Goes after “Union Thugs” in Wisconsin

By Sarah Posner

…, faith. Just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, the Koch brothers-backed group that backed the election of Scott Walker and his anti-union agenda, co-founded the political consulting firm Century Strategies with Faith and Freedom Coalition founder Ralph Reed. Reed, who profits both from his evangelical cred (which apparently hasn’t faded, in spite of his questionable past) and his ability to put…

A Peek Inside the ‘Onion’ of Scientology

By Kristin Rawls

…o theirs, but they aggressively tried to ban him. In the early 1960s, the [American Psychological Association] wrote letters banning members from having anything to do with Hubbard or his theories. Hubbard saw them as enemies, and that has not changed in Scientology. Children who grow up in Scientology say their understanding of psychiatry is that it’s the root of all evil. In your chapters on Lisa McPherson, the young woman who died under myster…