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Kirk Cameron Joins the Anti-Mormon Chorus
(Sort Of)

By Julie Ingersoll

…he pluralistic spirituality promoted by Beck. In Howse’s view, the not-so-fictional Left Behind novels are being played out before our eyes. Pastors and evangelical leaders literally locked arms with all faiths, including Imams, in a spiritual endeavor despite the clear biblical warnings of II Corinthians 6:14… The Mormon Church is now rejoicing over the public relations success that these undiscerning evangelical leaders have handed the Mormon Ch…

The Year of the Abusive Priest

By Anthea Butler

…teachings heretical to the Church. Which is what Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, has been noted for, and why he does not have any other language from which to address this avalanche of deservingly bad press. This Pope is a theologian, more comfortable wielding doctrine than dealing with the real people who practice the Catholic faith. His language is theological language, which just doesn’t work well with the media, the Muslim world, or with govern…

Orthodox Jews Begin to Reckon with Sexual Abuse

By Paul Berger

…abused a boy at a Jewish summer camp. Rather than supporting the alleged victim, the community rallied to Kolko’s defense. Historically, abuse victims and their families have often been urged—and then bribed or threatened—not to go to the police. Jewish customs and concepts, such as mesirah (not informing on a fellow Jew to the secular authorities), chilul hashem (the desecration of God’s name) and lashon hara (spreading gossip) are invoked to c…

New Reports Reveal Global Persecution of Nonbelievers

By Austin Dacey

…o “blasphemous content.” The IHEU reports being contacted by an increasing number of secularist groups organizing on Facebook, including groups in Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Malaysia, Pakistan, Tunisia, Turkey, and Sudan. In all of this, the United States is an anomaly since it rejects even laws against religious hate speech, which were found in 36 of 45 European states in 2011. It’s the best place in the wo…

My Business, Myself: Piercing the Corporate Veil

By Howard M. Friedman

…those of the “real people” who own or manage it. An Oklahoma federal district court, rejecting a challenge by Hobby Lobby Stores to the coverage mandate, thought it was, finding: General business corporations do not, separate and apart from the actions or belief systems of their individual owners or employees, exercise religion. They do not pray, worship, observe sacraments or take other religiously-motivated actions separate and apart from the i…

Dear White Evangelicals: A Black Square Ain’t Gonna Cut It

By Jhas Williams

…doubt that a start would have been not being able to count on one hand the number of Black children in my entire Christian school student-body. Do Black educators only exist in public schools? Of course not. Why then couldn’t we find more Black scholars to employ when it came to teaching children? I can tell you that I’ll recognize change as genuine when white preachers and ministers stop using Bible verses to pacify their white congregants by amp…

Jesus Christ and Super Stars: How The Holy Rolled Mainstream in Pop Music

By Alana Massey

…n’t consider myself a Christian artist,” she concludes, in the self-contradicting tradition of Bieber. But where musically Bieber professes his faith in opaque gestures, like naming his album “Purpose” and alluding to an elevated kind of forgiveness, Baker is explicit. “Baker engages with her reaffirmed faith in ‘Rejoice,’ a soaring three-minute ode to belief that has become the climax of her live set, and which she calls her ‘mission statement, i…

Debate Heats Up Over “Francis Effect”

By Patricia Miller

…one to measure the pontiff’s influence” than, say, actual metrics like the number of people going to mass or returning to the church. According to Burke, you just have to “ask around” Boston to find folks who know someone who’s thinking about returning to the church or who feels less horrible about the church than in the darkest days of the U.S. clerical sex abuse scandal, which had Boston at its epicenter. That’s a pretty low bar, but of course n…

8: The Mormon Proposition Gets It Right

By Joanna Brooks

…have dismissed the film as blatantly false. But what I’m hearing from a number of Mormons deeply familiar with the Proposition 8 campaign is that the film gets it mostly right. [See also Holly Welker’s review here. – Eds] Some take exception to editing choices that sequence events out of context for dramatic effect; others wish that the filmmakers had not been so cartoonish in their depictions of anti-gay-marriage standpoints, using only notori…

Americans Say Religion is “Losing Influence”

By Diane Winston

…big tent approach to coverage of American ir/a/religion. But do the Gallup numbers point to new ways we might be thinking about business as usual? Two findings are striking. First: Gallup reported that although Americans felt religion’s influence was declining, many—75 percent—agreed that more religion would be positive for the country. Not surprisingly, churchgoers were most gung-ho about religion’s beneficial impact. But “over half of those who…