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How a Pioneer of Branding Invented Christian Fundamentalism

…sumer capitalism that he knew so well, packaging and trademark and massive promotional campaigns. How has Crowell shaped the modern religious landscape? The Moody Bible Institute pioneered a means of generating a reputation of being a purveyor of pure religion. Today these business techniques are everywhere. The biggest churches in America have no denominational affiliation, and they are filled with respectable, middle-class people. This would not…

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Herd Heroism in an Age of Rebels: The Cultural Roots of the Anti-Vaxxer Movement

…industrial complex for their well-being, my children will not. Few parents today have seen pertussis or measles firsthand. As Eula Biss points out, it’s easier to oppose vaccines when you have no real concept of the diseases they’re intended to prevent. Similarly, few of us probably have much of a concept of what happens when, say, Neal Beagley refuses treatment for a bladder obstruction. The answer—that backed-up urine ruptures the kidneys and en…

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Bringing the Senate Back to Decency: An Election Day Morning After

…name George W. Bush for Andrew Johnson, and the point translates very well today. Our own Senate seems caught up in the mingle-mangle of its own egotism, and a case of the “hysterics of nervous bucking,” and there is no evidence to suggest that this fever will pass post-Election Day. And the House promises to be, if anything, even worse. Henry Adams continues: Great leaders like Sumner and Conkling, could not be burlesqued; they were more grotesqu…

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On Women’s Equality Day, Going Back to the Sacred Texts of Feminism

…story of the women’s movement and feminism to illuminate American troubles today, to recall the longer battle lines drawn amongst women’s organizations on opposing religious and political lines. This absence of feminist thought and contributions is equally evident in debate between science and religion on spiritual experiences, or the neuropsychology of religious experience. Rarely, in these discussions, does one find feminist studies of science o…

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New Study: Islamophobia Common in Catholic Media

…that, while the book was originally published in 2003, it continues to be promoted as “an essential resource” as its publisher, Ascension Press, noted in an email today. As documented in the Bridge Initiative report, Spencer has written for numerous Catholic news outlets, and he has been cited as an expert in others. While some of these are fringe websites, like Church Militant, others are more mainstream, like Our Sunday Visitor, one of the most…

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Why The Book of Mormon (the Musical) is Awesomely Lame

…xt—proof of Smith’s prophetic powers—was more important than its contents. Today, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints emphasizes scripture reading more than ever; but even now, Mormonism is not primarily about the Book of Mormon. This sacred text would indeed be a strange foundation for a religion. It’s a convoluted, quasi-historical chronology of prehistoric America, a narrative summary of men with arcane names (fathers, warriors, gen…

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Trump with back to camera stands before a frenzied crowd with raised fist.

With ‘Vermin’ Remark Trump Crosses Fully into Nazi Territory

…estants (57%) and White Catholics (59%)—say that if the election were held today, they would vote for Trump. These levels of support from White Christians are virtually unchanged from 2016 and 2020. Like other successful authoritarian leaders, Trump has uncanny political instincts. Ever since he rose to power, his MAGA mantra has been conjuring a vision of an ethno-religious, White Christian state. His use of the phrase “poisoning the blood of our…

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New History Finally Recognizes Afro-Creole Spiritualists

…e men in 19th-century New Orleans, but the story it tells connects to much today. Religion, race and politics are closely intertwined in American history and culture today. This is not a new phenomenon. I often tell my students that when we talk about American religion, we’re also talking about politics. And when we talk about American politics, we’re also talking about race. Religion, politics and race are not unconnected and sitting in separate…

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Paul for the People: John Dominic Crossan Imagines a “Letter to the Americans” In His New Video Series

…hosting a bunch of them for dinner at the White House. If Paul were active today, what message do you think he would want to send to this group? In the prologue to the new video series I imagine Paul writing a letter called To the Americans and written in the same blunt style he used to address so many communities across the eastern Roman Empire. It’s worth speculating about what he might say. He might, for example, ask us about our Pledge of Alle…

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Apocalypse Now and Then: Our Global Death Wish

…the strongest of human actions, often at terrible cost.    Waiting For War Today is no different. For example, within the evangelical world—which, let’s remember, includes between 30% and 40% of all Americans—there is a split between postmillennialists, who believe that Christ’s peaceful reign on Earth will follow a gradual improvement in human life, and the more familiar premillennialists, who believe that Christ will suddenly come back, destroy…

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