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

By Joanna Brooks

…ims and accusers. In 1995, the Church established stronger guidelines and new protocols for reporting abuse, including a 1-800 number for local clergy. …

Lifestyles of the Rich and Pious

By Patricia Miller

CNN’s Belief Blog has a great rundown of the lavish homes of American archbishops who haven’t gotten the memo from Pope Francis about a “church which is poor and for the poor.” CNN reports that “10 of the 34 active archbishops in the United States live in buildings worth more than $1 million.” The median home value in the U.S. is $174,200. Not surprisingly, that list includes some of the nation’s most outspoken conservative bishops—and allies of…

The Radical Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Left’s Challenge Today

By Peter Laarman

…d hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood. And these haunting words—haunted by our knowledge that the Second Indochina War would grind on for eight more excruciating years: We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Hard questions for today Reading “Beyond Vietnam” today st…

Are School Districts Getting the Message on Government-Sponsored Prayer?

By Lauri Lebo

…mples of something, it’s automatically worthy of a trend story. And so, according to the rule, it’s too early to call this a trend. Still, it is interesting that two news stories came out yesterday about school districts ending government-endorsed religious observances because they recognize that they would probably lose a costly First Amendment battle. Could it be that in the wake of the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover trial, in which the Dover school d…

A Resurgence of “Ex-Gay Therapy” Under Trump/Pence? ABC News Report Offers a Platform to Hate Group Rep. Peter Sprigg

By Sunnivie Brydum

…orts,” is indeed “long-discredited.” But then they offer what amounts to an 800-word platform to the Family Research Council’s Peter Sprigg. The short piece serves as a teaser for Friday’s episode of 20/20, the result of a year-long investigation into several ex-gay “camps” located in the American South. The 20/20 segment features interviews with at least two young people sent to the camps—as well as self-described pastors and administrators of th…

Prosperity Gospel Is Not the Only Problem with Joel Osteen’s Harvey Response

By Brie Loskota and Peter Gudaitis

…ons must identify assets, make sure people know what they are doing, and coordinate a response under a well-conceived plan. All of this has to be done long before three days into a disaster. As disaster response professionals say, a disaster site is a terrible place to exchange business cards. Since 9/11, the emergency management community increasingly has recognized the importance of involving “whole communities” into disaster preparedness, inclu…

Gambian Leaders Portray Anti-Gay Law as Defense of Islam, Ugandan Politicians as ‘Christmas Gift’; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…just him. In what the Polish media are calling “the Biedron effect,” a record number of candidates also came out publicly before the local elections, which took place in two rounds over the last two weeks. None of the others won seats, but gay rights activists are still hugely encouraged by the change. Their poor showing can be attributed largely to the fact that they were mostly young first -time candidates with left wing parties, which saw litt…

The Burning Houses of Worship We Missed

By Gordon Haber

…adical but nevertheless disturbing story about China’s Kargilik Mosque. According to Radio Free Asia, the Chinese authorities stripped the 16th century building of its Islamic imagery and festooned it instead with banners proclaiming, “Love the Party, Love the Country.” The destruction and desecration of the mosques is part of a larger Chinese governmental effort to expunge Islam from China. It’s directed against the Uighurs, a largely Muslim Turk…

Rep. Cleaver’s ‘Awoman’ Prayer Enrages Christian Nationalists Who Taste Their Own Medicine and Still Miss the Point

By Andrew L. Seidel

…” was meant to be a cute nod to these new, groundbreaking rules, to the record number of women in Congress, and, perhaps, a shout out to Congress’s first female chaplain. (Yes, Congress has chaplains. We spend $800,000 a year on them.) The problem is that it wasn’t cute, it was divisive. And “awoman” isn’t even a Cleaver original. It’s an old feminist joke, one that crosses cultural lines and stems from the a long tradition of pushing back against…

What Coverage of a Fatal Orthodox Baptism Reveals About Western Media

By Katherine Kelaidis

…ty practiced full-immersion baptism. The Greek word βάπτω, from which the word baptism derives, means “to dunk.” Baptism by affusion (that’s the sprinkling of water that you will see in most Western churches, both Catholic and Protestant) initially emerged as a concession, probably in the 2nd century, but ultimately became the standard practice of the Western church by the 10th century. That being said, many Protestant traditions, particularly tho…