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Did North Carolinians Vote Against their Own Beliefs?

By Peter Montgomery

The most dispiriting number to come out of North Carolina today was the huge margin of victory for a constitutional amendment that, as Candace has noted, will not only forbid same-sex couples from getting married, but will strip couples of any legal protections that might have been offered through domestic partnerships or civil unions. The broad wording of the amendment is more evidence that anti-gay advocates are lying when they say they’re only…

Growing Up Gay in 666: Fred Phelps in Retrospect

By Scott Blaine Swenson

…ify hate and violence. And while the coincidence of being born under the “Sign of the Beast” in Topeka 666 is still a little unnerving, there are differing opinions about the number’s translation. Some theologians suggest the number should really be 616, in which case, all eyes on Peoria, Illinois….

Religious Leaders On Anti-Muslim Frenzy: “Silence Is Not An Option”

By Sarah Posner

…xious and fearful that their classmates “will look at them like aliens.” A number of religious leaders, including Mattson, spoke at the press briefing, which was one of the most highly attended press events relating to religion that I’ve seen — except for events hosted by religious right groups. Richard Cizik, president of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, speaking to evangelical Christians engaging in or promoting anti-Muslim b…

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

By Sammy Feldblum

…ing and just how overstretched they were, that people came. We had quite a number show up. They just wanted to share common resources, and to figure out what each other was doing, and how they could team. There’s a real felt need in the community to team together to serve the city that happened during the storm. I think it’s still happening in terms of people appealing to religious resources for help with clean-up, for long-term financial help. An…

Conservative Hardliners at Synod Prompt Question: “What Are We Doing Here?”

By Patricia Miller

…m the first small group discussions held this week indicate that a sizable number of bishops believe that the preparatory document is all doom-and-gloom and doesn’t do enough to celebrate the sizable number of Catholics who are successfully leading a traditional Catholic family life, reports John Allen: The synod’s final report ‘should begin with hope rather than failures, because a great many people already do successfully live the Gospel’s good…

Exclusion is Causing Great Harm: A Conversation With Suspended UMC Pastor Rev. Cynthia Meyer

By Joel Pitney

…than in the leadership? My congregation has been very supportive. A small number of people chose to leave. Some of them not because of their feelings around the issue of homosexuality, but they just struggled with the church being in the news. But that was a small number, and most folks have been very receptive. Many immediately began telling me about their family members, and all of their personal stories. My vulnerability in sharing let them op…

Islamic Intellectual Leadership at a Crossroads

By Amina Wadud

…th, for both are part of my devotion to Allah). They do have a substantial number of women included, so I would not complain on that count. But, here’s the thing: there are no women under the category of Muslim intellectuals. Apparently women don’t think. So it is even harder to adjust to the loss of these three men whose intellectual contributions helped to shape the ways we think about and in fact live Islam today; both for women and for men. I…

The Revolution Will Not Be Fetishized: Taking Resistance Beyond the Spiritual Industrial Complex

By Andrea R. Jain

…erve certain neoliberal, conservative, or nationalist agendas, there are a number of commitments that many of them claim to embrace. These include commitments to the following: religious and cultural pluralism, gender equity, racial and sexual diversity, environmental sustainability, scientific inquiry and historical-critical commentary, and a public space that guarantees both freedom of and from religion. Hence, I am certain the number of self-pr…

The Messiah is Not Coming

By Peter Laarman

…umbers given out by the Census Bureau earlier this month: big jumps in the number of Americans losing compensated work for working poverty or worse, and concomitant big jumps in the number of people losing health care coverage. The thing is—and labor market specialists all concur—these blows are no longer cyclical phenomena that will be reversed once “the economy” really starts humming. “The economy,” in the way that mainstream economists gauge it…

Ministries of Presence: A Report from Nepal

By Cathleen Falsani

…25 other family members in Kathmandu on May 8, 2015. Photo by Cathleen Falsani. Over the course of the days that followed, I got to know Heuertz’s friends: a family of Nepali Christians—27 of them in one tall, blessedly sturdy house—led by Gautham Rai, a 42-year-old pastor who emigrated from Bhutan when he was a child, and his wife, Rheka, who have adopted or otherwise given a home to a number of girls and young women who have survived sometimes…