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Americans Say Religion is “Losing Influence”

By Diane Winston

…gion would be positive for the country. Not surprisingly, churchgoers were most gung-ho about religion’s beneficial impact. But “over half of those who seldom or never attend [services] and close to one in the three Americans who say religion is not important to them personally still say it would be positive for society if more Americans were religious.” What planet do these Americans live on? Here in the U.S., religious fervor is at the center of…

Sacred&Profane: The Living Dead

By Gary Laderman

…history does shed light in the darkness, and the history of Halloween, as most readers here know, is primarily about collapsing the boundaries between the living and the dead. Most accounts begin with Samhain, a pagan holiday that marked the beginning of winter but also celebrated the migration of the dead to the next world. The pre-Christian Celtic cultures throughout Europe, Ireland, and England understood the period around November 1 as not ju…

The Real Goal of Pro-Life Movement Support for Scott Brown: Kill Health Care Reform

By Sarah Posner

…le of Massachusetts. . . . Elections have consequences and the Democrats must understand that the consequences of a Sen. Brown victory mean it’s time to put a stop to the flawed government-run, pro-abortion health care program that’s been on a fast-track. For a movement with pretensions to ideological purity, the religious right’s support for Brown is calculated for the short term: hijack health care reform and push the narrative that the country…

The 17th Century Roots of Roy Moore’s Refusal to Concede the Election

By Karen E. Park

…de. Moore’s short non-concession speech late Tuesday night was comprised almo*]}*st entirely of a paraphase of Psalm 40. He attempted to prop up the sad and subdued crowd by saying: But we also know that God is always in control. You know, part of the thing—part of the problem with this campaign is we’ve been painted in an unfavorable and unfaithful light. We’ve been put in a hole, if you will. And it reminds me of a passage in Psalms 40. I waited pat…

Travolta Airlifts Scientology, Supplies, to Haiti

By Becky Garrison

…at Ground Zero after the September 11 attacks, I witnessed the Scientologists’ volunteer ministers in action. Once some semblance of order was restored after a few weeks, they were one of the religious groups kicked off the site for proselytizing and passing out pamphlets under the guise of providing “pastoral care.” Their counseling services included promoting their hotline number on Fox News under the title “National Mental Health Assistance.”…

Sacred&Profane: Wilco Worship and the “Churn” in American Religion

By Gary Laderman

…religion. In order to pursue that path, we have to do away with one of the most obfuscating, irritating, and limiting words bandied about by too many in public discourse: faith and faith communities. In the land of no religion, faith, as a domesticated catchword for Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus of every stripe and strand, is out the window. When faith, affiliation and tradition no longer apply, the possibility for religious life…

Change v. Change at NPR

By Warren Throckmorton

…associated with religious groups who question the APA’s findings. However, most of the therapists who argue with the APA are associated with churches and organizations which see homosexual behavior as immoral. There is debate but it is between the mental health establishment and a much smaller number of traditionally minded religious therapists. However, even if Spiegel had correctly identified the nature and participants in the debate, she still…

U.S. Bishops Reject Pope Francis’ Priorities

By Patricia Miller

…of abortion and euthanasia and excludes poverty and the environment.” The most aggressive revisions the bishops did make to “Faithful Citizenship” were to beef up references to their opposition to same-sex marriage, which now total nine, changes that National Catholic Reporter blogger Michael Sean Winters notes “clearly are designed to make it lean more to the right and to the GOP.” The final straw was the leadership elections. Four candidates fo…

Jesus Christ and Super Stars: How The Holy Rolled Mainstream in Pop Music

By Alana Massey

…devout man declaring the salvific dimensions of the cross. But perhaps the most telling revelation was when he said, “I’m not religious. I, personally, love Jesus and that was my salvation.” That these two diametrically opposed statements came out of Bieber’s mouth one after the other could again be fodder for mockery to his detractors. Finding salvation in Jesus is the definition of being a Christian and Christianity is, for better or worse, a re…

Orthodox Jews Begin to Reckon with Sexual Abuse

By Paul Berger

…hodox world. Just a couple of months ago, two of the country’s largest and most influential Orthodox organizations, the Rabbinical Council of America and the Orthodox Union, co-sponsored America’s first National Jewish Child Abuse Prevention Week. There’s nothing to suggest that sexual abuse is any more or less prevalent in the Orthodox community than anywhere else; but there are a number of peculiarities to Orthodox Jewish life that have made the…