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Clergy May Soon Find Taxes Soaring As Result of an Under-the-Radar Ruling

By Patrick Hornbeck

…de their counterparts in other religious traditions.) The first subsection, 107(1), allows a minister to exclude from taxable income the value of a living space that’s considered “part of his compensation,” while the second, 107(2), permits the exclusion of “the rental allowance paid to him” for a living space. This second subsection, wherein the employer provides the money rather than the space itself, is the one that Crabb found unconstitutional…

The Burning Houses of Worship We Missed

By Gordon Haber

…m, and Louisiana. But I do find it fascinating, in a depressing way, that a 13th century mosque has been willfully demolished, and a 16th century mosque forcibly converted into a Communist propaganda center, but that you wouldn’t know a thing about either unless you actively follow the issues facing minority religions. The Koriya Mosque in Western China reportedly dates from 1237. Last week the Guardian published satellite images of the mosque in…

Normalization is Control: Telling Stories to Survive

By Mariam Durrani

…for myself, my family, and colleagues. So I’ve been trying to draft a short 800-word article for Religion Dispatches, as my attempt to make sense of this current moment, not because I chose this as an anthropological project, but here I am. Here I am listening to Trump’s transition team drop words like Muslim registry or that there is a precedent for internment camps in American history. The news that the KKK has been dropping their newsletter off…

The March for Life: Grassroots Movement or Agitprop?

By Patricia Miller

…the Women’s March, despite guest stars like VP Mike Pence. With only about 100 buses permitted for the city, compared to 1,800 for the Women’s March, organizers are suddenly claiming it’s not about the numbers after all. March for Life President Jeanne Mancini told the Times: I don’t think that these numbers are the most important. The number most important for us is 58 million, which is the number of Americans that have been lost to abortion. Bu…

My God, David Brooks

By John Modern

…t is almost invisible outside the academic world because the text is nearly 800 pages of dense, jargon-filled prose.” Rest assured, we do not need to read Taylor for ourselves because David Brooks can be trusted. His ongoing effort to distill for us the density of jargon is a choice well-honed. The result: a column that we have chosen to read (again, wisely) and, moreover, a readerly choice that becomes a sign to others and ourselves that we are a…

Prosperity Gospel Is Not the Only Problem with Joel Osteen’s Harvey Response

By Brie Loskota and Peter Gudaitis

…. Houston’s Joel Osteen has a net worth over $50m and a church that holds 16,800 but this is all he’s offering. pic.twitter.com/rmhdWK6ZAO — Mark Elliott (@markmobility) August 28, 2017 What I mean is, Joel Osteen is not selling the preferential option for the poor. Your best life is not being flooded out of your house — ProfB (@AntheaButler) August 28, 2017 Whatever one’s opinion about Osteen, the Twitter storm above Lakewood Church perpetuated…

Malta Adopts Marriage Equality Over Objections of Catholics and Evangelicals; And More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…an churches took their cues from evangelical US megachurches that since the 1980s have expanded their influence through campaigns against abortion and homosexuality, Kim said. South Korea is also home to many megachurches, including the world’s largest congregation of nearly 800,000. But their reputation has been tarnished by recent corruption scandals. “For them, the anti-gay campaign is another way to maintain their political influence in this t…

Gambian Leaders Portray Anti-Gay Law as Defense of Islam, Ugandan Politicians as ‘Christmas Gift’; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…erway. On New Year shall parish councils propose their candidates. By March 1 must be submitted proposals for lists based on these suggestions. After this, other present their own lists. This is completely new – previously there was only a single list that voters could pick from. Advocates of gay marriage have already announced that they will promote their own lists in all dioceses. Opponents have said they will wait until they see the first lists…

Pastor of Kentucky Church Severed From Baptists Over LGBT Inclusion: Not Activism, Just Honesty

By Mike Greer

…isville and before the fundamentalist takeover of the seminary in the early 1990s Crescent Hill was the spiritual home for many students, staff, and distinguished professors. Today the 800-member church is a diverse community of faith including people of various races, ethnic backgrounds, sexual orientation, and world-views. Refugees and immigrants compose roughly one-third of the congregation. The church is heavily invested in a wide array of soc…

Boy Scout “Perversion Files” Raise Questions about Abuse in Mormon Contexts

By Joanna Brooks

…ual abuse perpetrators maintained by the Boy Scouts of America from 1959 to 1985 are raising new questions about the relationship between the LDS Church and the BSA. Since 1918, the Church has partnered with the BSA, hosting scout troops in most of its United States congregations. (The New York Times profiled the LDS-BSA relationship—including the experience of gay LDS Boy Scouts impacted by BSA’s LGBT discrimination policies—this week.) Today,…