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A Peek Inside the ‘Onion’ of Scientology

By Kristin Rawls

…d forgive everybody. Miscavige doesn’t seem to do that. And auditing has become extremely expensive, which just isn’t doable for many people. If Scientology can adapt by lowering its prices and becoming less punitive, it might continue to grow. They will have to allow people to discuss and debate the tenets so that the religion evolves as all faiths do. Mormons are a great example. There are practicing Mormons who have written [critical] books ab…

Punks vs. Monks: Rockers Speak Out Against Genocide in Myanmar

By M. Sophia Newman

…violence appears to have been incited by Buddhist monks. The Rohingya, who number almost one million, have been denied citizenship since 1982 and subjected to denials of the rights to travel, marry and have children. The discrimination appears rooted in the ethnic group’s Muslim faith, which makes them a tiny minority in the majority-Buddhist nation. The most notable participants in the violence are a movement of Buddhist monks called “969”. The…

Like a Virgin

By Donna Freitas

…okay, full disclosure: “Sex and the Soul” is the name of my new book, forthcoming in April from Oxford University Press on the subject), I met a number of evangelical Christian young women who had “repackaged their virginity” (as one woman called the process). I wonder how dismissive and cynical people would be after hearing some of their stories? There was nothing funny about these young women’s sexual identities. Yes, my feminist radar went up a…

If You Liked The Martian You’ll Love These 3 Sci-Fi Shorts

By Andrew Aghapour

…. Luckily, Weir offers a treasure trove of short stories on his website, a number of which break with The Martian’s goal of approximating reality, grappling instead with some of the same issues that we discuss here at The Cubit. Without further ado, here are the top three short stories for anyone jonesing for more Weir: Bored World. The story of a mischievous, trans-dimensional plane of existence. Is this a god, or the story of sci-fi itself? Anti…

Exclusion is Causing Great Harm: A Conversation With Suspended UMC Pastor Rev. Cynthia Meyer

By Joel Pitney

…still there, but most of them really want to do it. They’re very open, welcoming and affirming. It’s just terrific. People probably wouldn’t expect that. It’s a very low-income, blue-collar, tiny rural town, but folks are not conservative around this kind of issue. They’re loving. They reach out to everybody. I think that’s true of a lot more “people in the pews” than some in the church want to recognize. The primary difficulty in this conference…

RDPulpit: Rick Warren and the Limits of Empathy

By Tom Davis

…l of a sudden did abortion trump all other issues? Rick Warren is a man of compassion—why does he not have compassion for women who make the decision to end their pregnancy? Limited Theology and the Failure of Empathy Two factors seem to be involved in Rick Warren’s position. The first is a certain limitation in much of American evangelical theology. Historically the latter has focused primarily on the individual. There have been exceptions, evang…

Is Abortion No Longer Significant for Evangelicals — or Has it Just Become Like Water?

By Bradley Onishi

…%). When Coney Barrett was nominated in September of 2020, Trump’s polling numbers among white evangelicals had dipped to a low of 55% in August 2020. However, once her nomination was made public that number rose to the normal average of 71%. Coney Barrett’s record on reproductive rights was a central issue in her confirmation hearings, as Anna North points out at Vox: Barrett, a Catholic and member of the religious group People of Praise, has als…

Risky Business: The Pitfalls at the Corner of Church & Wall Street

By Elizabeth Drescher

…such efforts reinforce the worst qualities of capitalism: privatization of common property, competition for resources, unequal distribution of resources, socially unbalanced participation in production, the hoarding of wealth by those not directly involved in production, artificially amplified consumerism? Or, do they offer a real hope of reshaping the structure and practices of capital markets themselves? Protestant Work Ethic 2.0 Joy Anderson, f…

How a Ruling for Masterpiece Cakeshop Could Embolden White Nationalists

By Sunnivie Brydum

…could be employed to undermine state—or even federal—protections aimed at combatting discrimination against any number of marginalized populations. “The cultural and political prominence of religious freedom as an American ideal draws people to it,” Wenger said. “The reason people appeal to it for all sorts of purposes is because it’s so culturally, politically, and legally powerful.” Indeed, as Wenger’s book documents in deep historical detail,…

$50 Billion Fundamentalist Free Fall

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…s launched its own investigation, and further charges seem inevitable. The numbers involved are staggering. His company’s value, estimated at some $50 billion is now, by his own admission, based on “one big lie.” (Recall that Enron was valued at $63.7 billion when it went belly-up). That lie is the oldest one on the books, one enabled and exacerbated by a paper-money-and-credit system such as ours. It was, in the word of the day, a “Ponzi scheme”……