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“I Was a Wild Man”: How to Decode Evangelical Testimony

By Eric C. Miller

…s opinions but not my own. Please respect the privacy of my family at this time, thank you. I do thank everyone for the outpouring of love for my family as well during this difficult time and we appreciate all the prayers and support we are receiving.” Without pursuing this further into the tabloid material, we may observe that the lives of Christians, of public figures, and – perhaps especially – of Christian public figures are dependent on and g…

Are You Doing Your Part in the Baby War?

By Katherine Stewart

…dy. “We had originally planned not to have kids, but now we have to do our best to repopulate the city with Christians.” The religious right consistently promotes policies that defund any kind of government efforts to improve the conditions of working families. They support politicians and policies that strip poor, working and middle class families of social support. Everything from food stamps to public education to health care are on the choppin…

“Religion, O Diabolic”: Lamenting Religious Violence, Then and Now

By Ed Simon

…cularism: the religion of liberty, equality, and fraternity. These are the best of those French values, attacked this weekend. To paraphrase an American poet, there is nothing wrong with France that what’s right with France can’t fix. There is no figure that better embodies the French character than Montaigne, the writer who in many ways invented the modern person. A Catholic, he was horrified by the terror enacted in the Paris massacres. For him…

Right Wing Christians and Radical Feminists Form an Odd (Transphobic) Couple

By Sunnivie Brydum

…ly rejected the claim that allowing trans folks to use the facilities that best match their gender identity leads to any increase in reports of harassment or assault in such spaces. It just doesn’t work that way. In fact, if anyone has anything to fear it should be transgender people since they’re actually more likely than their cisgender peers to be harassed and assaulted in sex-segregated spaces like bathrooms and locker rooms. And with high-pro…

Come Hell or High Water: How the Melodrama of Disaster Leaves Us Vulnerable

By Noah Berlatsky

…be able to avoid this increased frequency of extreme weather events.” The best way to deal with climate change is not as an existential end-times test of humanity’s virtue, but as a technical, bureaucratic, and political problem. If you get too caught up in the impossible task of saving the planet, you’ll miss the very possible, ground level opportunities to reduce harm. Disaster, though, has a clarifying glamour. It promises to highlight virtue,…

Evangelical Stephen Baldwin’s Imitatio Christi & “Reality” TV

By Gabriel Mckee

…isms—they dumb us down, they elevate public humiliation—but what I’m really interested in is the way shows like Spike’s Joe Schmo Show or VH1’s I Love Money turn into morality plays about the value of friendship and loyalty. In the best reality shows, the initial rush of schadenfreude is gradually replaced with a genuine affection for the “good guys,” and righteous frustration at the machinations of the villains. I’m also fascinated by the villain…

Is It the Job of Religion Journalists to Define “Religion”?

By Ann Taves

…asonable) definition of religion. When Linker asks “why can’t the New York Times’ religion columnist define religion,” the answer I think is three-fold: First, Oppenheimer was writing as a journalist, who covers religion for the NY Times, much as journalists, such as Joe Palca, cover science for NPR. Just as Palca reports on research in the sciences that he finds interesting, so too Oppenheimer in the column in question was reporting on a study ti…

Khalifah: We Really Do Have Control Over Our Own Destiny

By Amina Wadud

…believe we live this life according to our own will and trust in the Lord. I just don’t get the idea that unless I get a specific, personal, one-on-one message, then I cannot do the best I can with what God has given me. But then, as all the great Muslim thinkers conclude at the end of their writings: Allah knows best….

You’re Right, Ross Douthat: Donald Trump Is Kind of Like Islam

By Haroon Moghul

…lt-right, about which no better description can be offered than “the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.” The utter disregard for facts, evidence, difference, the wallowing in xenophobia, the encouragement of violence and aggression, the deep resentment, the feeling that everyone wrongs us and we’ve never wronged anyone—anyone who spends any time on social media will find Trump supporters convinced there is a white genocide underway;…

Studying Religion is Suddenly Popular

By Mark Hulsether

…because they were not esoteric or marginal in the first place, although at times they may have been underappreciated. The Dual Challenge of Religious Studies So it is pernicious to imagine Religious Studies as a phoenix rising from the ashes of a failed esoteric project. This strikes me like a meal that at first seems delicious, but leaves a nasty aftertaste. I prefer an image of struggle to build on the best legacies from the roots of Religious S…