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Post-Election, “Is The Black Church Dead?” Redux

By Anthea Butler

…and a growing number of conservative African-American candidates. A record number of black Republicans ran in this midterm election (some had already lost their primaries), and two are heading to Congress. Tim Scott will be the first African-American Republican to represent South Carolina in Congress since Reconstruction. (He beat out Strom Thurmond’s son in the primaries.) Iraq war veteran Allen West will be headed to Congress from Florida, despi…

Growing Up Cult: A Memoir of Life with Sri Chinmoy

By Brittany Shoot

…ion and that he didn’t want to have anything to do with me. He still lives right in the hub of the ashram. I also have an aunt, my father’s sister, who is a devoted member as well, who also has had no contact with me or my parents for years. For legal or ethical reasons, did you wait until he had passed to publish your memoir? Sri Chinmoy died on October 11, 2007. I had sold my book to Random House in October 2006, so I was still in the process of…

$50 Billion Fundamentalist Free Fall

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…an the tip, the system is, if not quite secure, then stable at least. When numbers of new investors decrease, as is inevitable in a finite universe, the seismic shocks ensue. What triggered this now is the overwhelming feeling of crisis on Wall Street and throughout the country. Simply put, a number of Madoff’s investors needed their money (even the very wealthy are feeling pinched in this downturn), and he was confronted with the impossibility of…

‘Murder Among the Mormons,’ Latest True Crime Doc From Netflix, Highlights Issues of Faith, Skepticism, and Authenticity

By Benjamin E. Park

…sis. Though inextricably linked to Hofmann through his role facilitating a number of document purchases, he also had an eye to the future, envisioning a church that was much more media-savvy and tethered to the modern age. His quick work helped dissipate attention and avoid long-lasting repercussions. A decade after the bombing, in 1995, Hinckley became the church’s fifteenth president. His thirteen years at the head of the faith are now remembere…

RD10Q: The Fight Against Feminism

By Kathryn Joyce

…ar, who were concerned about what seems a growing backlash against women’s rights within religious communities, and the fierce denunciations of feminism from the right. I’ve been very pleasantly surprised to see that the book has attracted some attention from a religious audience as well, many of whom said the book was a fair exploration of a lot of questions they’ve witnessed play out in their congregations. Are you hoping to just inform readers?…

The World is (Always) About to End, No Zombies Required

By Kelly J. Murphy

…ated out of fear and some two thousand years of failing (often) to ask the right questions about the text(s) we are reading. I came to teaching zombies late in the game in the spring of 2014, when zombie courses had long been on the books at a number of institutions across the United States, in literature courses and sociology classes and beyond. Scholars like Kim Paffenroth and Kelly Baker, among others, had already firmly established the relevan…

The Suppression of Sin in Evangelical Abolitionism: The Wilberforce Problem

By Jonathan D. Fitzgerald

…anti-trafficking activists in question do not identify with the Christian right at all, but rather describe themselves as Christian ‘moderates,’ and in some cases, even as Christian progressives.” She notes that these Christians “not only embrace the languages of women’s rights and social justice but have also taken deliberate steps to distinguish their work from the sexual politics of other conservative Christians.” Soon, however, conservative C…

Ministries of Presence: A Report from Nepal

By Cathleen Falsani

…olence, preventable disease, ecological concerns, gender issues, and human rights. “More and more you are beginning to see people seeing the social aspect of the Gospel, where Jesus himself went out and ministered and touched people,” he told me. “Going out and just preaching isn’t cutting it,” Mendies said. “We need a new interpretation of what Christ told us. The verse says, ‘the harvest is ripe but the laborers are few,’ and we tend to stop at…

Restoring Dignity: The Employee Free Choice Act

By Peter Laarman

…ty, comprehensive immigration reform, and much more within the broad human rights and civil rights agendas. Labor’s near-death experience in recent years taught it to be much better at alliance-building than the movement of 40 years ago—much better at practicing an ethic of genuine reciprocation in relation to other social movements. In other words, progressive clergy and lay folk have no excuse for hanging back from lending their full support to…

Union Busting for God: Catholic Colleges Invoke “Religious Freedom” to Violate Catholic Teaching

By Kaya Oakes

…e right to unionize and to choose the union they want to represent them. A number of Catholic colleges and universities have recognized this right in recent years.” Georgetown University, for example, where adjuncts unionized with SEIU in 2013, has a working committee where adjuncts regularly meet with administrators to discuss labor issues, which Beyer says shows that unions and administrators can “successfully work together to recognize the righ…