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Boy Scout “Perversion Files” Raise Questions about Abuse in Mormon Contexts

By Joanna Brooks

…ual abuse perpetrators maintained by the Boy Scouts of America from 1959 to 1985 are raising new questions about the relationship between the LDS Church and the BSA. Since 1918, the Church has partnered with the BSA, hosting scout troops in most of its United States congregations. (The New York Times profiled the LDS-BSA relationship—including the experience of gay LDS Boy Scouts impacted by BSA’s LGBT discrimination policies—this week.) Today,…

Policing Academic Freedom: A Book, a Controversy, and the Ominous Aftermath

By Michael Jerryson

…our years of legal action to defend publication of the book.” In a February 12, 2014 Time Magazine interview, Mr. Batra explained, “Her intention is bad, the content is anti-national and the language is abusive.” Another way of interpreting Mr. Batra’s statement is that Doniger’s narrative clashes with the RSS-prescribed narrative. And it does. Furthermore, it should not be a surprise that the RSS has problems with the book. In The Hindus, Doniger…

Fox Makes Mockery Of Promise To Rein In Beck’s Anti-Semitism

By Sarah Posner

…Soros in the crosshairs, not unlike what we saw with Father Coughlin in the 1930s or the John Birch Society in the 1950s. Byron Williams, a Beck acolyte who recently engaged in a shoot-out with police on his way to kill “people of importance at the Tides Foundation and the ACLU,” shares his hero’s hatred of Soros and other “progressives.” Given the more than 40 percent of Jews self-identify as liberal, this hatred targets us. Beck doesn’t care — a…

Culture Wars Today, Tomorrow, and Forever?

By Bill Berkowitz

…on Ogden’s nomination. According to Legal Times, “Senators have until Feb. 12 to submit questions in writing, and the Senate has a recess scheduled for the week of Feb. 16, potentially pushing a vote to the week of Feb. 23.” The campaign against Ogden was clearly a dry run for future anti-Obama efforts, particularly those related to the president’s judicial appointments. What are we learning from these early skirmishes about how the religious rig…

Are Atheists Taking 1st Amendment Suits Too Far?

By Gordon Haber

…it also helps wealthy pastors line their own pockets. For example, between 1993 and 1995,Saddleback Church paid Rick Warren a housing allowance of around $80,000 per year, which (probably not coincidentally) was most of his salary. The IRS guideline, however, was that clergy can only claim “fair market value” of the home, and the rental value of the house in question was $60,000 a year. The IRS wanted Warren to cough up the taxes on the differenc…

Milquetoast Liberal Religion Won’t Challenge Conservative Values: A History Lesson

By Sheila D. Collins

…nomy in favor of the radical free market. It was this period—the end of the 1960s and early 1970s—when the business community embarked on a war of ideas to take back the country from the “radicals” who had been undermining faith in the free market. One of their targets for conversion was the country’s religious leadership. Using both the carrot (invitations to all-expenses paid weekend retreats where the values of laissez-faire were extolled) and…

Religious Right Targets Obama Picks, Daschle and Holder

By Bill Berkowitz

…percent pro-life during the 108th Congress (2003-04); 0 percent during the 107th Congress; 11 percent during the 106th Congress; and 20 percent during the 105th Congress.” Daschle’s rating by the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) was just 50 percent as of 2003. Even if the religious right fails to prevent Daschle from taking his post—and all indicators point to the fact that it will—expect Daschle to be in their crosshairs on a regul…

Behind the Inclusive-Sounding Ads of this $100 Million PR-Blitz-for-Jesus it’s the Same Old Conservative Christian Fantasy

By Chrissy Stroop

…ll the forced earnestness of the “This is Your Brain on Drugs” ads from the 1980s, but none of the accidental hilarity and iconic qualities that make those spots such an enduring aspect of Gen-X and early Millennial nostalgia. I may be a little over 40 and only an irregular consumer of TikTok videos, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to suggest that “He Gets Us” is hardly going to register with today’s youth. Gen Z is the least religious generation…

Why #FreeBritney is an #Exvangelical Cause

By R.L. Stollar

…ist dubbed “The Princess of Pop,” Spears has five No. 1 singles and six No. 1 albums. She’s sold 150 million records around the world. After a public episode of mental illness in 2008, Spears was assigned a conservator. Since 2008, she’s nonetheless conducted four world tours, recorded four albums, and performed 248 sold-out shows in Las Vegas. Today she’s worth more than $60 million. While everyone knows about Spears, few know—and even fewer disc…

Pastor of Kentucky Church Severed From Baptists Over LGBT Inclusion: Not Activism, Just Honesty

By Mike Greer

…isville and before the fundamentalist takeover of the seminary in the early 1990s Crescent Hill was the spiritual home for many students, staff, and distinguished professors. Today the 800-member church is a diverse community of faith including people of various races, ethnic backgrounds, sexual orientation, and world-views. Refugees and immigrants compose roughly one-third of the congregation. The church is heavily invested in a wide array of soc…