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‘Murder Among the Mormons,’ Latest True Crime Doc From Netflix, Highlights Issues of Faith, Skepticism, and Authenticity

By Benjamin E. Park

…aud and tragic reality that it resulted in lost lives, broken homes, and devastated communities. This Wednesday, March 3, Netflix will release Murder Among the Mormons, a three-part documentary series that narrates the events surrounding Hofmann’s rise and fall, his bombs, and the investigative work that brought him to justice. Directed by Tyler Measom and Jared Hess, it’s a fast-paced production with an impressive amount of video coverage from th…

Are We Entering the End Times for Mainline Seminaries?

By Elesha Coffman

…nce existed mainly to train full-time pastors faced reductions in both the number of churches that could support such positions and the number of people eager to take the more challenging, but lower paying, church jobs that remained. Some seminaries shifted their missions to serve the academy or society more broadly, while others trained more part-time, second-career and lay pastors. These shifts were less abrupt than decisions to close or merge a…

Blood and Politics — Christian White Nationalism in the Age of Obama

By Bill Berkowitz

…on of organizing week-in, week-out events: Klan rallies, Bible camps, survivalist and gun shows, White-power music concerts, etc., many of which are described in my book. Second, when David Duke won a majority of White votes while running in two Louisiana statewide elections in 1990 and 1991, he uncovered a middle-American constituency that supported at least a portion of his national socialist ideas. Third, a group of respected (if not respectabl…

RD10Q: The Fight Against Feminism

By Kathryn Joyce

…the lifestyle is the purist edge of a widespread anti-feminism among conservative Christians, promoting a vanguard of large patriarchal families as an ideal for others to emulate, and attempting to popularize the conviction by tying the Quiverfull ideal to the demographic future of the West. Did you have a specific audience in mind when writing? I thought the book would most appeal to feminist readers, whether religious or secular, who were co…

How to Make Nones and Lose Money: Study Shows Cost of Catholic Sex Abuse Scandals

By Kaya Oakes

…al, leaving the American church with a massive money problem and shrinking numbers of parishioners on the eve of Pope Francis’ arrival. A recent study by Nicholas Bottan and Ricardo Perez-Trugila in the Journal of Public Economics revealed that, unsurprisingly, “a scandal causes a persistent decline in the local Catholic affiliation and church attendance.” “Some Catholics join other religious denominations during the first three years after a scan…

Republican Scandals Drag Secretive ‘Family’ Into the Big Time

By Randall Balmer, Anthea Butler, Evan Derkacz, Jeff Sharlet, and Diane Winston

…an empire, for many reasons, but especially with a president with low approval numbers, a failing war, and a decrepit infrastructure. Organizations like The Family and fundamentalist Christians, however, see an “Empire of Christ” at the core of any definition of “empire.” Their earnest, methodical recasting of the narrative of American history has been envisioned through the lens of Godly founding fathers, one nation under God, and the like (see J…

Post-Election, “Is The Black Church Dead?” Redux

By Anthea Butler

…the Tea Party’s mobilization, voter apathy, and a growing number of conservative African-American candidates. A record number of black Republicans ran in this midterm election (some had already lost their primaries), and two are heading to Congress. Tim Scott will be the first African-American Republican to represent South Carolina in Congress since Reconstruction. (He beat out Strom Thurmond’s son in the primaries.) Iraq war veteran Allen West w…

The Story Behind the Catholic Church’s Stunning Contraception Reversal

By Patricia Miller

…e the Latin mass and the teaching that Catholicism was the only road to salvation—change as a result of Vatican II and widely expected the contraception ban to be lifted. It seemed that the church was perfectly willing to evolve doctrine—except when it affected women. The day following the encyclical’s release, eighty-seven leading Catholic theologians released a statement condemning it, saying it relied on outmoded conceptions of papal authority…

Review: Is the Religious Right Dying?

By Laura R. Olson

…d failed in large part because of his failure to earn the support of conservative evangelicals, especially in the South Carolina primary. McCain’s success this time around is surprising considering the centrality of the religious right in the Republican electoral coalition. Some observers, however, including Dionne and former White House insider David Kuo, whose book Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction (Free Press, 2006) exposed…

In the Papal Pocket: Benedict XVI and the Press

By Mary E. Hunt

…apers of common life. Granted, few organizations can light a candle to the Vatican’s processions and the Pope’s moral claims. But for the press to pass over without critique the Vatican’s internal, exclusive structure (not to mention its convenient connections with governments like Libya and Iran at UN meetings in order to block consensus about population policies) is to abdicate an important role of the media. Rather than to please advertisers, I…