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Fusion Politics: A Way Forward for Bernie Sanders?

…think Sanders and his movement will be strongly influential. There are any number of priorities Sanders could choose from, of course. God knows it’s not like our nation isn’t in need of reform. At the moment, though, I’m less concerned with the pros and cons of any one issue than wondering what things might look like if Bernie tapped into what Rev. William Barber has named “fusion politics.” In the Christian Century, Jeremy Borden describes this a…

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In a Powerful Statement Black Presidents and Deans Say: No More Stolen Black Lives!

…meframe. Of course, statements are written all the time. I can’t count the number of statements and petitions I’ve signed over the last decade about one issue or another. This is why we knew we could not, we would not, simply offer a few words proclaiming our disgust. We wanted actionable items, matters that we could take up within our local communities and the academy. Already, we’ve followed up this statement by a discussion with the Association…

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More Thoughts on Media Coverage of Liberal Religion

…han the Republican base, and includes a far more significant (and growing) number of unaffiliated voters, avowed secularists (who are both non-believers and religious people) and religious minorities. And because more of those people like the Establishment Clause and would shudder at religiously-directed public policy. Given that the Gun Violence Prevention Sabbath had the support of a variety of faith traditions, it’s a good question to ask why i…

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Are Conservative Churches Really Winning by Being More Orthodox?

…rants—again, especially Hispanics—who still account for a disproportionate number of all births in the U.S. But the overall fertility rate has crashed since 2007—led by a sharp decline in immigrant fertility, particularly among Hispanics. What’s changed since then? Hint: it’s not a radical change in the moral teachings of the Catholic Church. In fact, a few peaks and valleys aside, the US birth rate has been pretty stable since 1970, and in recent…

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Sovereign Grace Sexual Abuse Lawsuit Just Got More Complicated

A number of developments in the lawsuit against Sovereign Grace Ministries (SGM) have taken place since I first covered it for RD back in early March. On May 14, a second amendment was filed to the suit: [The suit] adds three new plaintiffs, making a total of 11. Five plaintiffs are now using their real names, and the rest are pseudonyms. It accuses church leaders of conspiracy, negligence, misrepresentation and intentional infliction of emotiona…

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Size Matters According to New Study

…ns of the brain that remain unactivated in the rest of us.   There are any number of weird implications and outright contradictions in these sorts of studies. The first is this: do the authors of these studies believe that religious belief or practice has the power to effect the size of the human brain? If so, that would seem to grant an astonishing power to religion to effect real world, and very nearly miraculous changes.  Or perhaps the claim i…

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Yet Another Survey Shows ‘Nones’ Growth at Record Levels

…o 14% in 2000. Though unaffiliation tapered off slightly from 2000 to 2002—after 9/11—the robust growth trend continued, reaching 18% in 2010. The report makes clear that the trend away from affiliation with organized religion is not an indication of declining religious belief. They write that “conventional religious belief, typified by belief in God, remains very widespread—59 percent of Americans believe in God without any doubt,” adding that, “…

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Not a ‘Weenie-A** Lodge’: James Ray Trial Begins

…rned about those who had passed out or were suffering obvious stress. Just after the tragedy Melinda Martin, a former employee of Ray’s, told ABC news that the scene was so chaotic that EMT’s thought at first they had arrived at a more ominous event. “There was vomiting, you know, moaning and crying, and it looked like a mass suicide. It looked like people were on their way out. It was crazy.”   Soon after the incident, Lakota spiritual leaders fi…

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Are You There God? It’s Us, Googling

…exuality?” Chabad gets to speak second, within the Google algorithm, right after Wikipedia. Ask “Can you be gay and Jewish?” and Chabad—which does not condone same-sex relationships or intimacy—gets the first two answers. (Methodological notes for the wonky: this was tested on Google Incognito, on two different computers, one with no known search history for Chabad). Again, it’s not clear whether these quirks of search actually shape people’s beli…

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Can the Catholic Church Survive Trump?

…table uptick in white Catholic concern about the “religious liberty” issue after the bishops’ attacks on the Obama administration and the mandate. According to the Pew Research Center, the number of white Catholics who said the Obama administration was “unfriendly to religion” more than doubled from 17 percent to 36 percent between 2009 and 2014. And starting around 2012, white Catholics broke for the GOP by historic margins. It’s also worth notin…

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