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The Incredible Shrinking Catholic Church

By Paul Gorrell

…tning rod when it comes to the Church’s relations with Jews. While Catholic-Jewish relations had grown closer during the reign of Pope John Paul II, Benedict’s background as an ex-Hitler youth has created some suspicions about his true beliefs when it comes to the dignity of the Jewish religion. With this new development, the Rabbinate of Israel has severed ties with the Vatican and expressed concern about future relations with a Benedict-led Cath…

Mike Johnson isn’t Just Your Average Christian Right Avatar — He’s Influenced by Fringe Movements Unfamiliar to Most Political Analysts

By Annika Brockschmidt

…partnership ordinances were fraudulent—that they weren’t couples, but “same-sex, live-in lovers” and framed it as an attempt to impose homosexuality on Christians. Two years earlier, Johnson wrote an editorial calling for the criminalization of gay sex. Accordingly, he called the Supreme Court’s landmark 2003 ruling in Lawrence v. Texas, which declared the criminalization of gay sex unconstitutional, “a devastating blow to fundamental American val…

The Next Big Religion Issue: Immigration

By Daniel Schultz

…s hospitality, about what you’d expect from the holy text of a tribal, semi-settled culture. According to a new poll from Public Religion Research Institute, a surprising number of religious Americans are behind immigration reform. With that broad support and a progressive base that seems reenergized by the success of health care reform, this really might be the best shot for new immigration policy in a long while. I suspect that the question will…

“As Orthodox As They Come”: A Backstage Conversation With Rob Bell

By Andrew Aghapour and Michael Schulson

…attendance, of varying ages, nearly all of them white. With the aid of a 15-foot-long triangular whiteboard, Bell gave a two-hour talk that referenced physics more often than the New Testament, discussing dark matter, quantum mechanics, and how molecules can inspire each of us to self-actualize. This wasn’t pop science, exactly. It was closer to a mashup, owing more to New Age products like The Dancing Wu Li Masters than to traditional Christian t…

Episcopal Conference Lives Up to Episcopal Jokes

By Julie Ingersoll

…the height of the battling, that it was all not such a big deal, that the number of dissidents was actually quite small and that he thought his church would be better off once they were gone. Indeed, according to Wikipedia there are over 7,000 Episcopal congregations in the US with over 2 million members, though the significance of that number is unclear since, as the priest in the church where I was baptized once teased me: “when you’re baptiz…

Despite Conflation of Israel with Judaism, Anti-Zionism is More Kosher Than You Think

By Seth Sanders

…l in bringing Hasidism to the masses, describes political Zionism as an out-and-out denial of central tenets of Judaism; namely that, because it’s the prerogative of God alone to bring a messiah, and because human activity merely usurps his role, placing the state in the role of God indicates that “the Zionists must give nationalism precedence over the Torah.” And rejection of Zionism on the part of many traditional Jews was hardly confined to Cha…

The Suppression of Sin in Evangelical Abolitionism: The Wilberforce Problem

By Jonathan D. Fitzgerald

…abolitionist movement. She cites Melissa Ditmore, who argues in the social-justice-oriented magazine New Internationalist that “too often anti-trafficking has become anti-sex work.” Arwyn Jackson is amazed that the work she does has become so controversial. “It should be the most unifying subject of our time,” she says. But “it’s now becoming a divisive issue just because of where its being allocated or how it’s being communicated.” She and the m…

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

By Sarah Posner

…n the February 1 caucus. In case one might be inclined to dismiss the Trump-King-Cruz ideology, or the prospect that someone with this ideology could be the Republican nominee, one might do well to take note of another PRRI finding: that the people reporting the most enthusiastic interest in the presidential campaign are conservative Republicans. Only 40 percent of moderate and liberal Republicans, 43 percent of Democrats, and 35 percent of indepe…

How a Ruling for Masterpiece Cakeshop Could Embolden White Nationalists

By Sunnivie Brydum

…ore baking a cake becomes a religious act.” By the same token, the growing number of self-proclaimed Christians who insist that their faith requires them to reject and resist marriage equality, (or, say, the legitimacy of transgender identities,) are performing a kind of public proclamation of faith. Proclaiming these convictions—which are by no means universal—functions as evidence of one’s commitment to a specific (and problematic) doctrinal und…

Why We Won’t Let Jonestown (Or 9/11 or Sandy Hook) Die

By Kelsey Osgood

…f 2005. Fondakowski, best known for penning the highly regarded play-turned-HBO-movie The Laramie Project, told the New York Times that although she’d been hoping to avoid “dark, depressing subject matter” after writing about the murder of Matthew Shepard, she was drawn into the Jonestown vortex after David Dower of the Z Space Theater encouraged her to explore the tragedy. Fondakowski and her creative team began the project in 2002 and spent the…