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Swimming Against the Tide: Religious (Non) Affiliation Might Not Mean What You Think It Means

By Timothy King

…llowing such a line of reasoning might mean we are seeing an uptick in the number of American’s who will report a life-changing Christian experience while simultaneously being less likely to identify with any particular Christian institution. This raises questions about the complicated relationship between Americans and their willingness to affiliate with large institutions (religious and otherwise) in general. The rate of decline in affiliation f…

3 Reasons Catholic Bishops Are Holding Their Tongues on GOP Health Care Debacle

By Patricia Miller

…ortion services by private health plans—they still hope to get several much-wished-for goodies from the Trump administration beyond the promised roll-back of the contraception mandate. Here are three things the bishops are still hoping to gain from Trump and the GOP. A massive federal tax credit for parochial schools. As Politico reported: Catholic leaders are meeting with GOP lawmakers and members of the Trump administration, hoping to shape a fe…

As Tensions Escalate in the Balkans, the West Could Hand Putin a Valuable Weapon

By Katherine Kelaidis

…us ways “Everything is Russia, except Kosovo. Kosovo is Serbia.” It’s a not-so-subtle message to the Serbian people: “Russia gets it. And a world with Russia in charge will see Kosovo returned to you.” What does the West have to offer? This ignorance also offers Russia and other reactionaries a valuable weapon in their efforts to win new converts, allowing them to argue that there’s a “hidden history” of Christian persecution and suffering that’s…

The Fretting About Whether Democrats Are “Friendly” To Religion

By Sarah Posner

…in mid-2009 to levels similar to those seen in 2005 through 2007. About one-in-five say Democrats are unfriendly toward religion (22%), up from 15% who felt that way last year but about the same as in surveys conducted in 2005 and 2006. Views of the Democrats’ stance toward religion have soured sharply among groups that were already inclined to view the Democratic Party negatively, such as Republicans and white evangelical Protestants. But they ha…

Show Me the Way of the Hebrews: The Making of an African American Rabbi

By J. Lester Feder

…rshipped Jesus Christ.” (Dan Ross’s impressive senior thesis is the only in-depth history of the congregation.) A group of African Americans who thought of themselves as the children of Israel yet who worshipped Jesus Christ—this is not as odd as it may at first sound. Around the turn of the 20th century, some of the children their forefathers’ white masters. The Hebrew bible’s exodus narrative had long made it central to black theology, making Ju…

‘Imagine Better’: Can Harry Potter Change the World?

By B. Howell Belser

…s that combine to create an alternative world of wizards, muggles, and good-versus-evil that has captured public imagination on an unparalleled scale. Yet the response to Harry Potter from religious communities has been mixed at best. Some denounced the series as satanic, while others embraced the magical vision of tolerance and empowerment. J.K. Rowling explained in a 2007 Time magazine article that even though the books contain Christian imagery…

The Abortion Debate, Texas Style

By Dhawn Martin

…oments, however rare, however fleeting, offer a glimpse of generous and yet-to-be realized coalitions that strive for the common good, whatever that might look like. Texas, like the union of which it is a part, is built on tall tales, epic myths, and on the grand ideals of freedom, equality, and justice. I, for one, believe in the potential of politics to create more perfect unions. So today and every day that I am at the Capitol during this call…

Why Even Progressive Christianity Must Own Its Complicity in Anti-LGBT Violence

By Layton E. Williams

…roups sought to carefully distance themselves from any reputation for faith-based anti-LGBT sentiment, others were quick to point out their hypocrisy. In a piece directly responding to Southern Baptist leader Russell Moore, ThinkProgress LGBT Editor Zack Ford explained why conservative Christians’ sympathies toward LGBT people ring hollow in the absence of genuine affirmation. Ford writes, “…as terrified as we might be from the destruction wrought…

Contrary to Claims of Anti-Trans Muslims, LGBTQ+ Acceptance is Widespread in the History of Islam

By Ali Olomi

…erance of gender ambiguity and non-conformity in Islamic cultures went hand-in-hand with broader acceptance of homoeroticism. Texts like Ali ibn Nasir al-Katib’s Jawami al-Ladhdha, Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani’s Kitab al-Aghani, and the Tunisian, Ahmad al-Tifashi’s Nuz’ha al-‘Albab attest to the widespread acceptance of same-sex desire as natural. Homoeroticism is a common element in much of Persian and Arabic poetry where youthful males are often the…

Does God Want Jeremy Lin to Win?

By Jay Michaelson

…erican hero, and, like Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow before him, out-of-nowhere success story who wears his faith on his sleeve. Lin, like Tebow, is a deeply religious evangelical Christian. And while his own religious utterances have been both humble and thoughtful (Lin went to Harvard, after all), the press swirling around him has led to a spate of bad theology—which is a shame, because sports stories have the ability to capture the publi…