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Why Won’t David Barton Submit to Peer Review?

By Joanna Brooks

…ident of the United States of America? That’s the prospect raised by a new New York Times profile of Barton, who is an aggressive proponent of the thesis that the Christian dimensions of America’s founding have been suppressed. (Julie Ingersoll analyzes Barton’s recent appearances on The Daily Show and in the New York Times in a must-read essay here at RD.) I don’t fault Barton for his religious zeal, or his love of American history, and I admire…

America’s Savior: Lincolnolatry’s Hidden Cost

By Peter Laarman

…that account. To mark this week when Lincoln’s Birthday is celebrated, The New York Times Book Review splashed a sketch of the stovepiped Great One on its cover and featured reviews by Jill Lepore and Drew Gilpin Faust (Fight Fiercely, Harvard!) of three new Lincoln books. Lepore’s review of Martha Hodes’ Mourning Lincoln and Richard Wightman Fox’s Lincoln’s Body is exceptionally penetrating. My thinking here about Lincoln’s religious significance…

Bernie’s Roman Holiday

By Daniel Schultz

…on the idolatry of money in the middle of a make-it-or-break-it primary in New York, and arriving in Rome on a day when the Vatican would much rather be talking about Francis’ meeting with Patriarch Bartholomew in Lesbos about the European refugee crisis. As if that weren’t bad enough, Sanders showed up with his family in tow, undercutting the high-minded moral message he was supposed to be delivering, and Oh, sweet Jesus, did they really put his…

Civil Unions Battle Heats Up in Italy; Church Leaders in Malawi Defend Criminalization of Homosexuality; Report on LGBT Student Group Sparks Backlash in Indonesia; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…makers “have pressures on them, political, cultural, from the church.” The New York Times’ Jim Yardley took an look at divisions over the legislation in Italy, an outlier among western nations in lacking legal recognition for same sex couples, partly because, Yardley writes, “of the lingering influence of the Roman Catholic Church.” In the past, the Catholic Church would probably have played a major role in opposing the legislation (as happened in…

Mexican Bishops Exorcism Against Equality; African Bishops Oppose ‘Enemy of Human Race’; Israeli Islamic Leader Anti-Gay Op-Ed

By Peter Montgomery

…n May but banned in India. The film, by US-based Raj Amit Jumar, is set in New York and Delhi. The Hindu published an article and interview with Gupta on June 19: The film approaches sexuality and violence with a focus on the Muslim and LGBT identities. Preeti plays Leela Singh, a closeted homosexual girl in Delhi who leaves her orthodox father’s home to kidnap her activist bisexual lover, and marry her. In focus, as much as the issue, have been h…

Trendwatch: Thieves Taking the Christ out of Christmas. Literally.

By Daniel Silliman

…y and vandalism was reported from California to Minnesota to New Jersey to New York, where the theft was investigated as a possible hate crime. One Boston crèche has been robbed three times in nine years, according to the Boston Globe. A New York security company garnered a bit of publicity by offering free GPS trackers to implant in baby Jesuses, which wouldn’t deter thieves, but would enable recovery. The theologically questionable name for the…

Breaking Up with God: I Didn’t Lose My Faith, I Left It

By Sarah Sentilles

…man from Federal Express rang the doorbell to his tiny studio apartment in New York City. He was carrying a huge bag stuffed with envelopes. “Wow,” the founder said. “Are all those mine?” “No,” the delivery person said. He pointed to three giant Fed Ex trucks lined up on the street behind him, their hazard lights blinking. “All those are yours.” I really love that story. I think it reveals how human beings are waiting to make the world a better pl…

Sikh Prof. Prabhjot Singh Was Not The ‘Victim’ of a Hate Crime

By Simran Jeet Singh

…Mani Singh to the positive responses following the apparent hate crime in New York City. Let us try to put ourselves in the shoes of Dr. Prabhjot Singh rather than try to make his story fit into our idea of how he should feel. We will not be able to authentically understand how and why Prabhjot has responded to the assault until we abandon the victimization narrative and embrace a framework drawing from Sikh traditions that more authentically ref…

The Great Disappointment: When the World Fails to End on Schedule

By Randall Balmer

…Miller was a farmer and self-anointed Bible interpreter from Low Hampton, New York, near Lake Champlain. Whereas Camping’s prediction (as I understand it) was based on his dating of Noah’s flood, Miller devised a complex numerological formula based, at least in part, on the reign of Artaxerxes and the “seventy weeks” mentioned in the book of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible. All of that computed to sometime between March 21, 1843, and March 21, 1844. W…

Rapture Theology as Cultural Critique: What Camping’s Prediction Tells Us About Ourselves

By Rosamond C. Rodman

…f everyday social, political, and family life. Note, for example, that the New York Times focused their coverage of the prediction through the lens of the Haddad family. The parents actively prepared for the end on May 21, while the kids thought the whole thing ridiculous (but got a trip to New York out of it). Inadvertently, their coverage revealed what rapture and other religious rhetorics can produce: social and familial re-engineering. Harold…