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Elaine Howard Ecklund Wants to Dispel Myths Surrounding Religious Resistance to Science

By Sammy Feldblum

…to live there. But people have to live there. So when you start attaching care for environment to care for people, then religious people can really get on board with that. All stripes of religious people can get on board with caring for fellow human beings. I think sometimes you need to reframe things to help your message reach into different communities. There seems to be such an enormous amount of stonewalling against the idea that climate chan…

Trump is a Nightmare, Sure, But Can He Actually Do Anything?

By Sunnivie Brydum

…build broad coalitions of opposition to blatant anti-LGBT laws like North Carolina’s House Bill 2, Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and any number of ill-fated attempts to block the forward march of marriage equality. But my professional pedigree also breeds skepticism. And although it’s long been clear that the current administration is hell-bent on turning back the clock on basic civil rights for anyone who’s not a straight white ev…

Census Reveals Gay People are Shockingly… Normal

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…United States. Even here in my own incredibly conservative state of South Carolina, the number of same-sex couples increased and a quarter of them are raising children. It’s those kinds of facts that have right-wing media like the Christian Post scratching their heads, with headlines like this that rival anything over at The Onion: “Gay Couples Spread in U.S., Behave Like Straight Couples” Um, yeah, well, duh. What exactly are gay couples suppose…

New Research Links Spiritual-Not-Religious to Mental Disorder

By Elizabeth Drescher

…able to mental disorder.” This week, the news swam the pond to appear in a number of US news outlets. The research, led by University College London professor Michael King, reveals a population of “spiritual but not religious” Brits that generally tracks to the US population of “Nones” identified in a recent study by the Pew Forum on Religion in American Life. Some 35 percent of the more than 7,000 Brits surveyed indicated that they had “a religio…

What Irish Marriage Vote Means for Catholic Church; The Lonely Fight for Equality in Belize; Progress and Backlash in Tunisia; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…at for Christian principles but also a “defeat for humanity.” Conservative Cardinal Raymond Burke said Irish voters are worse than pagans: Cardinal Raymond Burke, who was recently moved from a senior role in the Vatican to be patron of the Order of Malta, told the Newman Society, Oxford University’s Catholic Society, last night that he struggled to understand “any nation redefining marriage”. Visibly moved, he went on: “I mean, this is a defiance…

YOU Are Spiritual But Not Religious: The Secret Spiritual History of the Choose Your Own Adventure Books

By Daniel Silliman

…hought of as embracing a mishmash of conflicting ideas—Catholicism and reincarnation, Buddhism and crystals, kitschy angels and dreamcatchers—which, if taken seriously as ideas, would not seem to fit together. For Montgomery, however, joining spiritual individuality to social practice meant a special emphasis on individual decisions, individual choices. He didn’t necessarily advocate that people believe a bit of everything, but rather that they ta…

As Tensions Escalate in the Balkans, the West Could Hand Putin a Valuable Weapon

By Katherine Kelaidis

…de against Albanian Kosovars in the late 1990s. The fact is, a significant number of Serbs, and even a large number of others from traditionally Orthodox backgrounds, continue to harbor a great deal of anger about Western intervention in the Kosovo War, which they see as a failure by the West to comprehend the historical role-reversal that’s taken place, including the persecution of Orthodox Christians by Albanians and other majority-Muslim ethnic…

UPDATED: Oklahoma Personhood Bill Not Dead…

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…ma Legislature chose not to pass personhood legislation. The extraordinary number of amendments to this bill makes it clear that the medical issues involved with infertility treatment, contraception, and pregnancy care are far too complex, and that medical decisions and family building are best left to doctors and patients. Personhood is an issue that goes far beyond abortion, and we’re very relieved that Oklahoma has chosen to trust families and…

The War On Terror Is Over

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…alled for an increase of a hundred thousand troops, which would double the number presently there. Yet it will still be half of the numbers of Russian troops that the former Soviet Union had deployed in Afghanistan—and it lost the war, dragging much of the Soviet economy down with it. A similarly dismal prognosis is in store for America’s continuing presence in Afghanistan. Moreover, the persistence of US troops in the region will continue to prov…

Religious Practices on Trial in Arizona: The Problem With “Experts”

By Johnny P. Flynn

…s. In following the Ray story over the past few months, I am amazed at the number of non-Indian sweat lodge experts the media has been able to locate. Few Indians if any have been interviewed; and even decidedly liberal MSNBC featured Court TV anchor Ashleigh Banfield as their expert on the sweat lodge. Banfield’s expertise, admitted on air, was one sweat experience with her stepbrother or brother-in-law (she wasn’t sure how he was related), “step…