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Pope Francis on Women’s Ordination: Not Newsworthy?

By The Editors

…some small movement on the part of this pope on gay issues, I think it’s crucial that he not be given a pass on issues related to women. They are all of a piece.” So that’s the story, doctrinally and theologically. But what happens when religion makes its way into our media culture? In today’s L.A. Times, Diane Winston offers a spot-on critique, worth reading in its entirety: Reporters who headlined the pope’s remarks on gays, knowing the story h…

Embattled Professor Took a Stand for “Human Solidarity,” Versus Entrenched Evangelical Fear

By Ivy George

…ty uniform,” for more than twenty-five years I took bemused note of recent headlines regarding a “hijab-wearing Christian professor.” For centuries men and women have worn variations of this outfit—a long tunic, loose baggy bottoms, and a scarf—all across the region from North Africa to South Asia. I wear it for free movement of my female body. Although Wheaton’s censure of professor Larycia Hawkins was not directly tied to her choice to wear the…

A Moral Movement Where Everyone Is in For the Long Haul

By Maxine Phillips

…in a country where “socialist,” until Bernie Sanders’s campaign, was not a word taken seriously by the mainstream. Barber confronts the conundrum of the left in the United States—Is the key issue race or class?—and says that both have equal weight. He acknowledges Martin Luther King’s debt to socialist and communist advisers without naming King’s own democratic socialism. He treats sexism tangentially. Above all, he stays on message: We’re here fo…

Americans Say Religion is “Losing Influence”

By Diane Winston

…ill standing. Did we get it wrong or did we just forget to look behind the headlines? What’s it like to be a Lutheran in northern Minnesota? How has Vacation Bible School at a rural Arkansas Baptist church changed since the ’60s? Who are the women behind the biggest Methodist congregation in Cleveland? I want to know more about the people who believe religion to be a positive social good. Do they tune out the news or find ways to live in a messy b…

Let’s Stop Calling Rape and Harassment by Bikram Yoga Founder Just Another “Guru Scandal”

By Andrea R. Jain

…der, that he is now nearly bankrupt. Well, as we have learned from Donald Trump, bankruptcy is not sufficient to destroy the super wealthy in the United States and, considering that American police arrest someone for marijuana charges every 42 seconds, many of whom, especially black youth, end up serving prison time, this cost to an entrepreneur of Choudhury’s magnitude strikes me as a mere slap on the wrist for charges of serious, harmful behavio…

Did Mormon Morality Teachings Really Make it Harder for Elizabeth Smart to Run?

By Joanna Brooks

…that it was not only fear for the safety of her family that kept her from running but also a sense that rape had ruined her: “It goes beyond fear. It’s feelings of self worth. Who would ever want me now? I’m worthless. That is what it was for me the first time I was raped. I was raised in a very religious household, one that taught that sex was something very special that only happened between a husband and a wife who loved each other… For that f…

Thank You, Ben Carson, For Your Latest Anti-Muslim Rant

By Haroon Moghul

…y compatible. I know, I know. I had the same reaction: Ben Carson is still running for President?! I’m not sure if he’s knocking Muslims because it draws headlines and might generate some buzz; because he actually, genuinely believes this stuff; or because the audience reaction to inflammatory statements wakes him up. Could be it’s all three. Needless to say it resonates with his base even as it offends everyone who isn’t some kind of religious bi…

Is the NY Times “Dumbing Down” Religion?

By Lisa Webster

…“feeling good” should be the supreme objective of the soul. Are our “real-world selves” a cause only for celebration? Are we really so terrific? For Wieseltier, this is the psychologizing of religion: it’s not about belief or inquiry, it’s about experience, heightened states. Or, as he puts it, “a direct road leads from William James to Joel Osteen.” As someone who once faced down a room full of dismayed div school classmates after suggesting th…

How Fitbit Helps a Conservative Evangelical College Monitor Students’ Bodies For Christ

By Jonathan Root

…d, body, and spirit in the service of Jesus Christ. Within the evangelical world, ORU is not unique in encouraging this holistic vision, but students who attend ORU know that the school is structured around its whole person ideology. ORU freshman Christian Monsalve, speaking to USA Today College, said that the fitness bands have raised students’ sensitivity toward their activity level. “Most of them,” he continued, “kind of switched gears and star…

The Latest on Zubik v. Burwell: Religious Orgs Propose a Compromise That They Themselves Would Oppose

By Elizabeth Reiner Platt

…ontrol coverage, the brief states “if the contraceptive coverage is to be truly separate, not just an automatic and unavoidable component of the petitioner’s plan, then it must have an enrollment process that is distinct from (and not an automatic consequence of) enrolling in the employer’s plan.” In other words, employees would have to opt in to coverage, which the government has repeatedly explained will result in lower rates of access and use….