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Swimming Against the Tide: Religious (Non) Affiliation Might Not Mean What You Think It Means

By Timothy King

…rom the Vatican museums. Photo by Cathleen Falsani. The Decline of Christendom Obviously, from the numbers and the tales they tell, American Christianity is hardly experiencing a Renaissance. But the rise of the “nones” does not equal its wide-scale collapse, either. A better description might be that we are witnessing the decline of “Christendom.” In this sense” Christendom” refers to the broader assumptions we imbibe, often without being fully a…

Dispatches from the Workplace: Postville: Ground Zero for the Intersection of Immigrant and Workers’ Rights

By Kim Bobo

…eir working conditions – they had nothing more to lose. The New York Times reported on a young Guatemalan who started working on the plant’s killing floor working 17-hour shifts, six days a week, and not consistently paid overtime. If even half of what the workers claim is true, Agriprocessors, Inc. is no better than what Upton Sinclair described in The Jungle. Workers reported that children were working with dangerous knives for long hours, women…

UN Human Rights Council Creates LGBT Watchdog; Orthodox Council Affirms Traditional Teaching on Family; Pope Francis Says Church Should Apologize to Gays; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…sts also that a fundamental human right is the protection of religious freedom–namely, freedom of conscience, belief, and religion, including, alone and in community, in private and in public, the right to freedom of worship and practice, the right to manifest one’s religion, as well as the right of religious communities to religious education and to the full function and exercise of their religious duties, without any form of direct or indirect i…

Show Me the Way of the Hebrews: The Making of an African American Rabbi

By J. Lester Feder

…lding of DC’s Sixth and I Synagogue. Sabrina Sojourner, DC’s former shadow representative to the US Congress, volunteered to be the new congregation’s cantor. She had “returned” to Judaism at a major reform synagogue where she felt very much at home, but had felt called to a greater leadership role. In the months before Aronoff moved to the Washington area, Sojourner would start services every Saturday morning at 10:00, often without enough worshi…

A Post-Christian America? Not Quite—Though Devoutly to be Wished

By Peter Laarman

…ntial part of the Council’s mission relates to women’s role and sexual and reproductive rights. So what’s this about? I have a theory, and I admit it’s only a theory, that the Obamans continue to overreact to 2004, when Bush and the Republicans retained governing power by vacuuming up the votes of religious conservatives. Since then the Democratic establishment has been trying to cozy up in various ways to white Evangelicals in particular, while d…

An Extravagant Welcome For All: Believe Out Loud, a Faith-Based LGBT Campaign, Launches

By Peter Laarman

…at links American Christianity and homophobia misses the large and growing number of Christians who are committed to building an inclusive church and an equal society. The trouble is that the pro-gay Christians haven’t had all the tools and resources needed to spread their message and build their movement. And they’ve worked in some degree of isolation from one another; within denominational silos and without much common issue framing. A bold new…

Life as a Game Show: Reading Slumdog Millionaire

By Paul Courtright

…ery Indian film faithful to the Bollywood aesthetic formula. It produces a number of rasa, “tastes,” in the viewer: heroism, humor, disgust, eros, fear, and tranquility. The final dance scene on the train platform pays homage to the familiar Bollywood genre. The musical score crackles with energy. There are any number of reasons why Slumdog has emerged as one of this year’s favorites among American audiences. Perhaps the Oscar nominations reflect…

Catholic Leaders Offer Criticism, Support to Boxer Pacquiao After Anti-Gay Comments…

By Peter Montgomery

…d, demonstrated that participants in the January protest had “no political representation” in Rome. Kenya: Report on Lives of LBQ Women Identifies Religious Sources of Homophobia This month the Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya released a report, “Research on the Lived Realities of Lesbian, Bisexual and Queer Women in Kenya.” From the report: Most religious institutions in Kenya are unashamed incubators for homophobia and intolerance for sexual a…

The Fretting About Whether Democrats Are “Friendly” To Religion

By Sarah Posner

…well aware that good Catholics can part company with the hierarchy on any number of issues, including abortion. Catholics represent about 23% of the American population, so they are obviously a significant voting bloc with a chunk in the middle that are crucial swing voters. But the quest to satisfy them by bending to the bishops or straining to be “friendly” to religion is not only misguided, but undemocratic. According to the Pew Religious Land…

Demonized and Demonizing No More.

By Joanna Brooks

…he same way I did—who felt like their identities and their stories weren’t represented in the most dominant atheist narratives. How would you characterize narrative American atheism has told about itself? If we actually asked atheists to historicize themselves as a movement, to tell a collective story, what would that sound like? Though there is a fascinating history of American atheism, it’s hard to answer that question right now. We’re a small…