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Religious Practices on Trial in Arizona: The Problem With “Experts”

By Johnny P. Flynn

…the experts. And experts have repeatedly dubbed what we do as marginal at best—unadulterated savagery at its worst. In the same way sports teams seek to own the balls-out brutality of the Indian warrior, James Arthur Ray brutalized sixty people in a plastic-covered hut less than the size of the average American living room. Because, that is how Indians become warriors. Right now Indians who do practice their tribal ceremonies are walking on edge…

Are We Entering the End Times for Mainline Seminaries?

By Elesha Coffman

…s in both the number of churches that could support such positions and the number of people eager to take the more challenging, but lower paying, church jobs that remained. Some seminaries shifted their missions to serve the academy or society more broadly, while others trained more part-time, second-career and lay pastors. These shifts were less abrupt than decisions to close or merge a seminary, but they were often quite jarring for faculty and…

‘Murder Among the Mormons,’ Latest True Crime Doc From Netflix, Highlights Issues of Faith, Skepticism, and Authenticity

By Benjamin E. Park

…declared it the earliest holograph from the prophet, and church leaders posited it as a clear vindication of the Book of Mormon’s truth claims. Hofmann, however, who by that time had lost his faith in the tradition, secretly took immense glee at fooling academics and apostles alike. The following years featured a stream of more documents, each seemingly more exciting than the last, nearly all originating from the young dealer, who had now given u…

Global Religious Right Asks ‘How Far Can We Get?’; And More in the Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…stitutional Court ruling in 2015. A group promoting the initiative cites a number of studies to support their argument that the initiative is needed to protect the best interest of children; among them is the widely discredited New Family Structures Study by Mark Regnerus. Their use of other studies has also been publicly challenged. From Human Rights Watch’s April 28 letter to Speaker Pinto [citations removed], which notes that the bill has alrea…

‘Heretics’ or ‘Atheists’? A Response

By Rachel Ozanne

…mic study. However, I wonder whether replacing atheist with heretic is the best option. In my life after orthodox Christianity, it is unsurprising that I have found myself associating with nonbelievers and nontraditional believers of many stripes—including many self-avowed atheists. Do these individuals fall into Blanchard’s description of atheists as intellectual elitists? Sometimes. However, more often than not, they are people like Blanchard an…

Religious Leaders Need ‘Empty the Pews’ Which Chronicles the Darker Side of the ‘Nones’ Phenomenon

By Kaya Oakes

…ord—fundamentalist Christianity has done to queer people just based on the number who have left. But it also demonstrates why Christian denominations that trot out their “welcoming and affirming” credentials may need to do more; they may want to spend some serious time listening to new members who have arrived from a fundamentalist background. While there’s doubtlessly a great deal of sincerity in those denominations, the issue for a queer person,…

Trump with back to camera stands before a frenzied crowd with raised fist.

With ‘Vermin’ Remark Trump Crosses Fully into Nazi Territory

By Robert P. Jones

…few years of slaughter and starvation “Greatest happiness of the greatest number” is a good slogan, but at this moment “Better an end with horror than a horror without end” is a winner. Now that we are fighting against the man who coined it, we ought not to underrate its emotional appeal. If we ever could, we certainly can no longer afford to think that Trump does not matter. He is the presumed nominee of one of America’s two major political part…

Mexico moves toward national marriage equality; Greek govt announces civil partnership legislation; Pope warns against ‘secularism and relativism’; Global LGBT recap

By Peter Montgomery

…d, evicted, and fired from their jobs due to being gay, and said a growing number of LGBT Ugandans are feeling for Kenya. Musaala, 58, was born in Ireland and educated in England and Uganda. He was ordained in 1994 in the Archdiocese of Kampala and began ministering to gays and lesbians in 1999. His archbishop considered that work “not in step with the church,” Musaala said. In March 2013, Musaala wrote a paper challenging priestly celibacy and cr…

The Gospel of Contradiction: An Interview with Mary Gordon

By Nathan Schneider

…mmunity that I can lead them to more familiarity with a very great text. A number of times you bring up Thomas Jefferson’s abridgement of the Gospels. He seems to be someone who, in some ways, you’re identifying with but also making very different choices from. I don’t have the luxury of just snipping out the parts of the Bible I don’t like. Whereas I greatly admire Jefferson and the Enlightenment figures for their courage in blasting through so m…

It’s The Apocalypse, Stupid: Understanding Christian Opposition to Obamacare, Civil Rights, New Deal and More

By Daniel Silliman

…ents. In this story a ruler invests in his servants, giving each of them a number of talents, or money. He then goes away to another kingdom. When he comes back he wants to know what they’ve done with their talents. Some had buried their talents, afraid of losing it. Some had lost the money, wasting their talents. But some had invested wisely and made more money. So the returning ruler rewarded those who had invested wisely and maximized their tal…