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The New Age Fantasy of a Celtic Church that Revered Nature and the Divine Feminine Never Existed — So What?

By Ed Simon

…nd mystery, and a “poetic rather than rational approach to faith.” In that spirit then, perhaps today we’ve no requirement of doxologies and theologies, of creeds and canons, but rather of feeling, sentiment, and perspective. Of poetry. Think of that apocryphal story about Saint Patrick preaching to the chiefs and druids of Ireland, first recounted by Caleb Threlkeld in 1727, wherein it was said that “by this three leafed grass, he emblematically…

Picasso’s Sacred Monster Eats Chicago: A Mystery Solved?

By Jeremy Biles

…tive interpretation. Multiply ambiguous, it is a strange concoction of any number of animal and human forms, as well as a sphinx; itself a hybrid monster. Moreover, the Chicago Picasso intimates both the Egyptian and Greek sphinxes—an amalgam of cultural styles. An ambiguous, almost inscrutable object, it is an enigmatic icon and the icon of an enigma; its very presence confronts the populace with a riddle. The riddle is not simply what the Chicag…

Ex-Gay Conversion Therapy: Choosing Religion Over Sex

By Lynne Gerber

…tices in American life. The debates over this practice emerged in the early 1970s, a time when ineffective and dangerous psychiatric interventions into homosexuality were standard mental health practice and harmed many gay people. Having homosexuality declassified as a mental illness by the American Psychiatric Association and other mental health groups was a major victory for GLBT activists, making it possible for the first time to even imagine t…

Change v. Change at NPR

By Warren Throckmorton

…founder of Journey into Manhood, and Peterson Toscano, a man who went spent 17 years in an unsuccessful effort to change his orientation. Schumacher-Matos correctly points out that much of the negative reaction centered on the presentation of Wyler and Toscano as representative of two sides of a current debate in psychology. In fact, the official pronouncements of the mental health professions are clear that scientific evidence does not warrant ps…

From Licking Floors to Praying for an Inept Government, Churches React to C-19

By Daniel Schultz

…ciety, among the most physically intimate, and likely include the greatest number of vulnerable people. Even single members of large congregations can have a dramatic effect on how coronavirus spreads or doesn’t, as South Korea found out the hard way. While many aren’t meeting at all or are streaming services, some churches that do meet feel like they need to support those who need it, in worship or otherwise. My mother’s congregation in Madison,…

An Unholy Holy Week: Is the All-Male Rule of the Roman Catholic Church Self-Destructing?

By Anne Eggebroten

…lture of extreme secrecy has prevailed, codified in Vatican norms issued in 1962 requiring secret investigations and prohibiting any report to civil authorities. Will Pope Benedict XVI set in motion any change to canon law? Will he step down or ask any complicit bishops to resign? Will he even order a Church-wide investigation? Unlikely. Instead, his moral authority will continue to erode. The number of priests will continue to dwindle. Catholic w…

Protesters in Washington DC, the day before the January 6 insurrection, wrapped in American flags blow shofars.

Netanyahu’s Genocidal Religious Rhetoric isn’t Just an Appeal to the Israeli Right — He Has Another Constituency in Mind

By Brock Bahler

…ileged rights to Native American land, including the Monroe Doctrine and an 1823 Supreme Court decision in the case of Johnson v. McIntosh, which declared that the “discovery” of America by Christian nations gave them the “sole right of acquiring the soil.” As Steven Newcomb, cofounder of the Indigenous Law Institute, has noted, the 1826 Tennessee Supreme Court decision Cornet v. Winton upheld the Christian colonialist underpinnings of the Johnson…

‘Pro-Life’ Theater, Open White Nationalism, and Virility Fear — Day 3 of NatCon

By Annika Brockschmidt and Ben Lorber

…assure voters put off by the draconian policies the GOP calls “pro-life.” A 19th century law and 1950s century gender roles Later on, Katy Talento, a health advisor in the Trump White House who says abortion is “disgusting, it’s against every woman’s desire,” echoed a Project 2025 plan to use the Comstock Act, an obscure 19th century law which bans the sending of “obscene materials” via the post office to ban abortion nationwide. “It’s not hard to…

Why Don’t White People Show Up For Juneteenth The Way They Showed Up For George Floyd?

By A. E. Brooks-Key

…but I refrained from intruding into their Juneteenth experience. The small number of White individuals, couples, and families often looked uncomfortable navigating the happy, jubilant, celebratory mass of Black bodies regaled in red, black, green, and gold. Was this a South Carolina anomaly? I doubt it. According to one poll, 51% of Americans had no plan to celebrate (and more than half of those respondents declared that “they would not take part…

American Christianity Is Changing Fast: Five Stories to Watch in 2016

By Richard Flory

…ken a much more adversarial stance to LGBT acceptance. However, increasing numbers of evangelical churches are accepting LGBT individuals as members. This development is not without its opponents, however. Many evangelical organizations—most significantly colleges, universities and seminaries—are mobilizing to retain their “religious right” to discriminate against LGBT individuals. More than 30 evangelical higher education institutions have petiti…