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New Mormon Anti-Gay Policy Sparks Mass Exodus From Church; Christian AID Workers in Africa Refuse to Help Gay Refugees; Ukraine Rejects, Then Accepts EU-Required Gay Rights Law; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…Kate Kendell, head of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, announced via a column for Religion News Service that she had formally resigned her membership in the LDS Church and asked that her name be removed from the records. Even at the height of church involvement in the passage of Proposition 8 in California, I never seriously considered removing my name. It just didn’t matter that much to me. Spiritually and emotionally, I left the church I…

Debunking the Myth That Democracy Is “Incompatible” With Islam

By Asma Afsaruddin

…with democracy” or lack thereof was relentlessly discussed in scholarly fora and the popular media. The religious resurgence evident in many parts of the traditional Islamic world in the wake of the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979 tended to confirm for many in the West that Islam and democracy were destined to part ways forever. The predominant conception of democracy in the West has been (and remains) that it is ineluctably predicated on secul…

Risky Business: The Pitfalls at the Corner of Church & Wall Street

By Elizabeth Drescher

…n the broader economy. Indeed, University of Pennsylvania researcher Ram Cnaan has shown that a modest-sized urban congregation contributes upwards of half a million dollars in economic value to its community in the form of direct services, real capital investments (the new roof over the sacristy), education, and less-easily quantified benefits like preventing crime, youth and domestic violence, and suicide. Anderson insists that churches’ investm…

‘Heretics’ or ‘Atheists’? A Response

By Rachel Ozanne

…ntense Christian devotion and deep soul- and scripture-searching, I “fell away” from the faith in my early twenties. I have been “unchurched” for about six years now and have often struggled to identify my current relationship to the Christian faith. Simply identifying as an atheist at first felt uncomfortable to me for a number of reasons. All of my family members remained Christian, so it was easier for me to tell them that I was “searching,” o…

Review: Is the Religious Right Dying?

By Laura R. Olson

…ight be dying. The movement’s putative founder, Rev. Jerry Falwell, passed away last year, and several other original movement leaders, especially Rev. Pat Robertson, are far less politically relevant today than they were in their heyday. We now hear comparatively little about religious right interest groups, and the once-powerful Christian Coalition is a brittle shell of its former self. Quite a few books recently have appeared that call for or p…

The Role of Faith in the Lives of Abortion Providers

By Sarah Posner

…not to continue her work as an escort. Her activism, however, continues unabated, including recently organizing an event, “Contraception Is Not Controversial” in Chicago with Democratic Representatives Mike Quigley and Jan Schakowsky. The doctor said she is worried about the increasing number of restrictions on abortion states are implementing. (To get a sense how women’s access to abortion is shrinking across the country, take a look at this map…

Union Busting for God: Catholic Colleges Invoke “Religious Freedom” to Violate Catholic Teaching

By Kaya Oakes

…istoric connection to first-generation and working-class students.” Sister Aaron Winkleman, who teaches at Dominican University—founded by Dominican women religious in 1890—says that adjuncts at Dominican ratified their first collective bargaining agreement with the university last year. She adds that “an institution’s being Catholic doesn’t in any way preclude that institution from unionizing. On the contrary, a Catholic institution should be pro…

The Religious Case Against Religious Discrimination in Cakeshop Case

By Patrick Hornbeck

…ke a custom cake for a same-sex wedding reception—pits religious believers against the nonreligious. After all, Jack Phillips, the baker at the heart of the case, has cited his Christian faith and his attorneys have argued that Phillips “seeks to live his life, pursue his profession, and craft his art consistently with his religious identity.” But with more than 90 amicus briefs having been filed in the case—more than a dozen of them having been w…

Transgender and Christian: Finding Identity

By Jori Lewis

…s own dignity that these religions fail to honor, an expression of protest against certain religious tenets, and/or a refusal to align oneself with institutions contributing to the marginalization of gender and sexual minorities. The difference in religious identification appears to reflect thoughts and feelings toward religious institutions more than it does spiritual behavior or beliefs.” But the idea of transgender Christianity still carries sh…

As New Poll Finds “Increased Xenophobic Streak,” Republicans Heighten Anti-Muslim Rhetoric

By Sarah Posner

…didates and governors pronounce Muslims and Syrian refugees personae non grata after the horrific massacres in Paris on Friday, a major new poll about Americans’ religious and cultural attitudes provides an ominous look at Americans’ views on immigrants and Islam in particular. The Public Religion Research Institute’s 2015 Religious Landscape Survey, released today in a new report, “Anxiety, Nostalgia, and Mistrust,” finds “Americans’ perceptions…