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Black Churches are Burning: Is It the 1990s All Over Again?

By Katie Day

…re were almost 900 reported cases of church arson in the late 1990s—a huge number compared to what we’ve seen in the last two weeks. A second difference is that of public response. In 1995-96, there was a unique alliance of actors creating “perfect storm” conditions. Black churches had long been the targets of racial hatred. But it was when Green Bay Packers player, Reggie White, spoke in an interview during the Super Bowl of 1996 about the arson…

Debunking the Myth That Democracy Is “Incompatible” With Islam

By Asma Afsaruddin

…g no disjunction between religious beliefs and democratic principles. In a number of Muslim-majority countries, the preference was even stronger. In Jordan, for example, 54% of men and 55% of women want Sharia to be the only source of legislation. Interestingly, from a comparative perspective, a 2006 Gallup poll indicated that 46% of Americans say that they want the Bible to be a source of legislation. These findings corroborate earlier studies co…

The Religious Case Against Religious Discrimination in Cakeshop Case

By Patrick Hornbeck

…like Phillips’s. But, as survey after survey has demonstrated, substantial numbers of Catholics, and to a lesser extent evangelicals as well, are not following their denominations’ leaders down this particular road, and there is a growing number of religious institutions that have embraced marriage equality and advocated for LGBTQ+ rights in the public square. Cases like Masterpiece Cakeshop make it clear that the boundaries of a national settleme…

Contrary to Claims of Anti-Trans Muslims, LGBTQ+ Acceptance is Widespread in the History of Islam

By Ali Olomi

…ginning. Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani’s Kitab al-Aghani records the lives of a number of individuals including one named Tuways who lived during the last years of Muhammad and the reigns of the early Muslim dynasties. Tuways was mukhannathun: those who were born as men, but who presented as female. They are described by al-Isfahani as wearing bangles, decorating their hands with henna, and wearing feminine clothing. One mukhannathun, Hit, was even in…

Transgender and Christian: Finding Identity

By Jori Lewis

…reassignment surgery (a process many people call “the transition”), so the number of transgender-identified people is likely much higher. The term “transgender” encompasses anyone with a gender identity that is different from his or her birth sex. A transgender person could be someone who just cross-dresses from time to time in private; someone who identifies as gender-queer (that is, neither male nor female); someone who is just taking hormones b…

Along Came a Spider: What the Pope Doesn’t See

By Anthea Butler

…y, as many of the dioceses in the United States become uninsurable and the number of Catholic churches dwindles. As membership shrinks, the number of ordinations decreases, and the coffers dry up, perhaps the Vatican and its leadership will be forced to look at its decrepit, hierarchical structure, and fix it. I doubt it, however. Like the spider who crawled across Pope Benedict’s robes this weekend in Prague, everyone except the Pope can see the…

Is Obama the Antichrist? Why Armageddon Stands Between the President and the Evangelical Vote

By Matthew Avery Sutton

…ts, a hidden “plan of the ages” emerges. According to their decryptions, a number of events will transpire just before the apocalypse. These include a return of the Jews to Palestine, a decline in morals, religious apostasy, and the consolidation of independent nations into one super-state led by a seemingly benevolent leader who is actually the Antichrist. During the last 100 years, evangelicals have witnessed more and more evidence of these prop…

No Conspiracy Theories Needed: Abortion Foes Cry Racism

By Kathryn Joyce

…n part by denouncing her as a bigot and a racist who wanted “to reduce the number of children [born] to the nation’s poorest economic groups, which tend to be persons of color and other minorities.” The Pro-Life Action League made a similar criticism this week against the Guttmacher Institute, claiming that the Institute’s call for publicly-funded birth control “takes aim at the poor by recommending more government spending on programs to reduce t…

Growing Up Cult: A Memoir of Life with Sri Chinmoy

By Brittany Shoot

…idea of devotion to a guru. After a number of attempts to leave, she broke free of the group at age twenty-five. I recently caught up with Tamm to talk about Sri Chinmoy’s death, her use of the word “cult,” and what her spiritual life looks like today. ** Did it make a difference to his followers that Sri Chinmoy was from India? Did it give him extra authority? In the late 1960s, there was a trend to look to the East for alternatives to Western re…

New Poll: Evangelicals Backing Trump

By Daniel Schultz

…urrently, 78% of white evangelicals support Donald Trump (identical to the number that voted for Mitt Romney in 2012). John McCain? 74%. George W. Bush 2000 and 2004? 68 and 78%, respectively. And despite the whopper of zombie lies told by Ted Cruz, no, 54 million evangelical voters did not stay home in 2012, rather than vote for Romney. In fact, white evangelicals have made up around one-quarter of the electorate ever since 2000. According to Pew…