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Review: Is the Religious Right Dying?

By Laura R. Olson

…m race divided the 2004 electorate: voters who frequently attended worship services were far more likely to support Bush, while Sen. John Kerry enjoyed a preponderance of support from people who rarely or never worship. (The problem for Kerry was that the United States is a highly churchgoing nation.) The 2006 midterm Elections featured several successful new Democratic candidates, including Ted Strickland (who won the Ohio gubernatorial race) and…

Trump the Totem: Like Other Fascist Leaders, Trump has Turned from Man to Symbol — And That’s the Danger

By Robert P. Jones

…being indicted for you…. And never forget our enemies want to take away my freedom because I will never let them take away your freedom. And I’m never gonna let it happen. They wanna silence me because I will never let them silence you. And in the end, they’re not after me. They’re after you. I just happen to be standing in the way. When the leader becomes the totem, no transgression is capable of separating him from his acolytes. A totem can’t li…

Condemnation, Condolences in Wake of Orlando Massacre and More

By Peter Montgomery

…ings from Arab and Muslim governments with the countries’ legal regimes, a number of which punish homosexuality with death. A hacker identifying with Anonymous flooded some ISIS-related Twitter accounts with rainbow flags, gay porn, and fake “coming out” tweets. Mexico: Church driving down support for marriage equality; activists worry about threats In the weeks since President Enrique Peña Nieto announced plans to push for a constitutional change…

Are Evangelical Films Destined to Leave Secular Audiences Behind?

By Daniel Silliman

…he movie-making ministry of a Baptist church in Albany, Georgia, has had a number of commercial triumphs. Facing the Giants was made for about $10,000 and grossed $10 million. Fireproof was made for $500,000 and was the highest grossing independent film of 2008, with more than $33 million in ticket sales. The studio’s latest effort, Courageous, released in 2011, is the success people dream about. It was made for $2 million. It brought in $9.1 mill…

Ten of Our Favorite Top Tens

By The Editors

…ists. From the Ten Commandments, to the ten avatars of Vishnu (Krishna was number eight), to Buddhism’s ten precepts, religions are all about systems, ethical prescriptions—or proscriptions—and grand schemes. Order out of chaos is the name of the game. All this to suggest that the Top Ten list is obviously something deeply ingrained in the human experience. So here, without further preamble, RD’s picks for the Ten Best of 2008’s Religion Top Ten l…

Refusal of Interracial Couple Shows How Slippery the Slope of LGBTQ Refusal Really Is

By Heron Greenesmith

…federal statute, and states are explicitly prohibited by federal case law from banning marriage for interracial and same-sex couples. But, with conservative Christian legislators, litigators (like the Alliance Defending Freedom, who drafted Mississippi’s anti-LGBT statute), and judges growing in power and number, how slippery is the slope of religious exemptions? And are the exemptions merely codifying what’s already taking place?…

The War Within: Religion and Our Tangled Relationship with Our Bodies

By Michelle Lelwica

…and analyses of popular cultural examples, I would have liked to discuss a number of other issues that are triggers for body shame because they involve physical experiences in which we have no (or limited) control. Menstruation, skin tone and complexion, and body hair are just a few examples of topics the book doesn’t delve into because the scope of issues it does cover (i.e., disability, weight, chronic pain and illness, and aging) is already imp…

Global Anti-Gay Forces Plot Against ‘Satanic’ Equality Movement

By Peter Montgomery

…onery store owner who is a Jehova’s Witness and who has refused to provide services to gay couples was compared by Communities Minister Stephen Williams to the owner of a Bed & Breakfast turning away people for being black or Irish. Mr O’Reilly told PinkNews he was upset at the refusal, saying: “We would understand if her company was solely aimed at her religious group – but it’s not. She does not refuse anyone due to their religion yet she is qui…

The Incredible Shrinking Catholic Church

By Paul Gorrell

…le from its ranks and fights against their rights, ignores the diminishing number of priests and the effects of this shortage on Church communities, and calls on Catholics to form the “perfect society” resembling the ecclesiology of Opus Dei. It is no surprise that Pope Benedict comes from a country—Germany—where the percentage of Church members attending Sunday mass is one of the lowest in the world. Strict adherence to orthodoxy will not be popu…

A Secret History of Satan

By W. Scott Poole

…n, in some cases public policy. The book makes the case that a significant number of Americans believe in the same Devil believed in by Puritan preachers and 19th-century evangelists. This cannot be dismissed. Its essential to understand why this is so, what historical conditions gave rise to this phenomenon and what does it tell us about the United States. Did you have a specific audience in mind when writing? I had several groups in mind, all of…