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PCUSA’s Nod to “Traditional” Marriage Understandable, but Not Accurate

By William E. Smith

…ect in June. Given the tensions this issue has caused, both within the PCUSA and among many other denominations, it shouldn’t be very surprising that the phrasing in the PCUSA’s Book of Order was changed from “between a man and a woman” to “between two people, traditionally a man and a woman.” “Traditional marriage” is common in the rhetoric of those opposed to same-sex marriage, and it’s a phrase that’s likely to bring to mind images of a kind of…

The Suppression of Sin in Evangelical Abolitionism: The Wilberforce Problem

By Jonathan D. Fitzgerald

…lical beliefs. But these led him to hold other kinds of positions, too. As Adam Hochschild notes in his book Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves, chief among Wilberforce’s concerns was “the suppression of sin.” He encouraged King George III to issue a proclamation against vice, which included the prosecution of such offenses as “excessive drinking, blasphemy, profane swearing and cursing, lewdness, profanat…

Hold Your Applause: Potential Changes to Roles of Catholic Women and LGBTQ+ People May Just Be Vatican Breadcrumbing

By Mary E. Hunt

…ose Driven Life, supports women in roles of spiritual leadership. Backlash against women isn’t reserved for the Supreme Court. The Vatican ought to send the SBC a thank-you note for distracting attention from its actions, or lack thereof, regarding women. Catholicism has neither an assembly to vote congregations out, nor any women in approved priestly leadership to expel. Parishes are simply closed by bishops, often related to bankruptcy proceedin…

Can The Religious Left Be Effective Again? Longer Answer: Quizás

By Daniel Schultz

…, we ought to look to black and Hispanic communities. A new study from Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs might provide some backup for that assertion. (Standard disclaimer: this is only one study, we’ll have to see if it’s corroborated by other research.) Brad Fulton, the paper’s author, used data from the National Congregations Survey “not previously available to researchers” to track churches’ participation in servi…

With Election Takeaways Like ‘Too Transgender’ or ‘the US is Shifting Right,’ Dems are Determined to Learn the Wrong Lesson

By Chrissy Stroop

…I’m not sure anybody likes them, especially after an election that may be catastrophic for one’s particular demographic. But given that, as usual, the Democratic leadership is already drawing all the wrong lessons from Kamala Harris’s defeat by convicted felon Donald Trump, I suppose there’s value in making an argument for what the right lessons should be. In any case, let’s run through some of the false narratives already being floated, the most…

Swiftboating Obama’s Health Care Reform?

By Bill Berkowitz

…ek’s anti-abortion group, BornAliveTruth.org, launched a major attack on Obama, using a very personal and heart-wrenching TV ad (featuring “abortion survivor” Gianna Jesson). As Christine Bowman notes on Buzzflash, the PR company behind the project was Virginia-based CRC Public Relations , a firm that has now been hired by Conservatives for Patients Rights, a group whose intention is to put the kybosh on the Obama administration’s plans for reform…

The Dirty Little Secret of Every Ponzi Scheme, or: Bernie Madoff’s 150 Year Sentence

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…y, perhaps, the notion that we can quantify just cause this way, assigning a number value to justice? Why does 150 years seem intuitively just, whereas a thousand years would seem excessive, and five years lenient to the point of ludicrous? Given the connections made between Madoff and Hitler by many of his victims, why not propose the death penalty for his crimes? I have suggested certain parallels between several latter-day bubble bursts and the…

Elisabeth Elliot (1926-2015) and the Rise of Extreme Evangelicalism

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…along with four other young men, were killed by the very Waorani people of Amazonian Ecuador to whom they had come to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ. The story of their modern day martyrdom was told in Ms. Elliot’s Through Gates of Splendor, published the following year. Copious copies of the book have sold for the past half century and it was ranked number 9 in the “Top 50 Books the Have Shaped Evangelicals” by Christianity Today, alongside wor…

Life Imitates Satire Imitates Life: Rep. King Revives Manchurian Candidate

By The Editors

…ars ago by neoconservative-friendly American Muslim leader, Shaykh Hisham Kabbani. In honor of this magic number and the hearings King will hold next month in order to address the “creeping threat of Sharia law,” RD presents the first edition of Life Imitates Satire Imitates Life. In this clip, from the Manchurian Candidate a Joseph McCarthy stand-in uses his own investigative tool to determine how many crypto-commies there really are… Rep. Pete…

American Christianity Is Changing Fast: Five Stories to Watch in 2016

By Richard Flory

…ious freedom” laws that would allow them to discriminate. When President Obama mouthed platitudes during the funeral of the slain Rev. Clementa Pinckney at Emanuel AME, activist Bree Newsome took it upon herself to scale a flagpole and take down an instrument of hate and bigotry. Pope Francis is a rock star, but Americans are still leaving church in droves. This and other powerful juxtapositions are just part of the reason many of us now refer to…