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Advice from a Disaster Pastor: Open Your Wallet, Not Your Closet

By Carlos Wilton

…now that? Because I’m a disaster pastor. My church is located in Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey — close to where the eye of Hurricane Sandy came ashore nearly five years ago. The asset houses of worship and relief agencies most welcome, in the wake of a blockbuster storm, is money: undesignated money. They can use it to purchase the goods and services local survivors most need, at each stage of the recovery process. Yet, many high-minded and gen…

Roy “10 Commandments” Moore Doesn’t Want to Reform the Senate, He Has a Higher Calling

By Sunnivie Brydum

…Congress whose views or experience are analogous to Moore’s is tricky, but Texas Sen. Ted Cruz likely comes closest to providing that example—especially during the Senator’s freshman term, when the Tea Party-backed legislator reveled in publicity-grabbing stunts like his infamous Green Eggs and Ham filibuster over the Affordable Care Act. But Cruz, who became a Senator at age 43, has had to temper his anti-establishmentarianism, and his right-wing…

Five Signs Atwood’s “Handmaid’s Tale” Dystopia May Be Nigh

By Patricia Miller

…providing abortion, even if a woman is paying some or all of the premium. Texas just passed two bills that would ban the safest, most common second-trimester abortion method and require women who have an abortion to pay for the burial or cremation of aborted fetuses. Arkansas passed a law that would not only ban the safest second-trimester procedure, but potentially allow husbands or fathers to block a woman’s abortion. According to the Daily Bea…

The Surprising Catholic Roots of the War on Xmas

By Patricia Miller

…which is an ancient tradition that has its roots in Siberian shamanism. … Santa is also borrowed from the Caucuses [sic], mistletoe from the Celts, yule log from the Goths, the time from the Visigoth and the tree from the worship of Baal.” Donohue seized on the incident to charge that Wal-Mart had purged “Christmas” from its web site, which he called “discrimination” practiced by “cultural fascists.” He called for a boycott of Wal-Mart in mid-Nov…

The Dark Side of Our Obsession With Trapped Thai Children

By Edward E. Curtis IV

…eping on a concrete floor in a detention center for immigrants in McAllen, Texas. Nature created one of these tragedies; we created the other one. The media offers us minute-by-minute updates about how the Thai children, in a race against time, might escape tragedy. Television viewers tune out of their local and day-to-day problems and tune in to the media coverage. What are the current oxygen levels in the cave? How many countries have joined the…

Religion and Drag Coexist in ‘Drag Race’ Spinoff—but That Doesn’t Mean It’s Queer

By Drew Konow

…tin Johnson, the man behind Alyssa, and the elite dancers at his Mesquite, Texas, Beyond Belief Dance Company. Viewers and critics may be tempted to comment on the prevalence of religion in Dancing Queen—perhaps to claim that it subverts or queers Christian understandings of gender and sexuality. What we actually see in the show, however, is that simply adding LGBTQ people is no surefire formula for queering religion—at least if queer is to mean a…

Kavanaugh Hearings Are a Commentary on Mormonism

By Holly Welker

…he Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints excommunicated Sam Young, a Texas businessman and former bishop, because he lobbied the church to end these invasive interviews with minors. The interviews continue into adulthood. If anything, they become even more invasive, because they’re required in order to get a temple recommend, a small card about the size of a credit card certifying that its possessor is worthy to enter the temple. Furthermore…

GOP ‘Big Tent’ Implosion: Hindu Edition

By Murali Balaji

…n Foundation and Hindus of Greater Houston have large chapters with bipartisan membership, making the GOP’s ad-fail all the more curious. Couldn’t they have, at the very least, asked a Hindu first? While the Republicans’ attempts at cultural sensitivity deserve a facepalm, it should be noted that neither party has made a significant outreach effort to the Hindu community. Even though a record number of Hindu Americans are running or have run for o…

Why Dallas Republicans Skipped an Interfaith Forum

By Jonathan Malesic

…hip between religion and politics. Dallas Area Interfaith (DAI), a nonpartisan group that counts about two dozen churches, synagogues, and schools among its member organizations, hosted the forum at Christian Chapel Temple of Faith, a venerable African-American church in North Dallas. Ten cushioned, dusty-rose chairs were set out on the floor, beneath a high bank of choir risers. There was one chair for each major-party candidate in each of five c…

Should We Believe ‘Bombshell’ Report on Pope’s Knowledge of Sexual Abuse?

By Daniel Schultz

…allegations has been investigated, as is the conservative bishop of Tyler Texas, Joseph Strickland. Marching right behind them is just about the entire crew terrified of the “homosexual lobby” taking over Catholicism. (Oddly, Cardinal Burke has been relatively restrained so far, saying only that “The corruption and filth which have entered into the life of the Church must be purified at their roots,” before calling for a full investigation of Vig…