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At Jeffress’ First Baptist Church of Dallas, Trump Support Is Part of a 150-Year Tradition

By Daniel Silliman

…couldn’t quite pull that off, and he got bogged down in fights with other Texas Baptists. One critic accused him of trying to be “pope, boss and supreme dictator at will.” It was true he wanted influence. And the Texas Baptist and Herald did have some power. At its height, it had 20,000 subscribers. Hayden, a Confederate veteran who fought at Shilo and Chickamauga, didn’t eschew politics either. His newspaper defined Baptist issues for a lot of p…

Texas Man Indicted for Mosque Bomb Threat

By Hussein Rashid

Last week a Texas man was indicted on charges of obstructing religious freedom for threatening to blow up a mosque in Tennessee. The story is important in its own right, but it is also part of a pattern of a misdirected focus on Muslims in a culture of Islamophobia, a culture of hatred that has become so extreme that even conservatives are backing off. The same week this Texan alleged terrorist is indicted, a homeless man in NYC decided to “figh…

The Racist Message of Do-Nothing Religion, Courtesy of Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick

By Kevin Healey

…tern is emerging. Perhaps it’s best captured in a recent headline from the Texas Tribune which read, “Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick says America must turn to God to heal racism.” Is this the spiritual wisdom that will bring us together, or more of the same complacency with racialized religious privilege that has come to characterize today’s Republican Party? It depends, of course, on what (or who) you mean by “America.” And what you mean by “God.” Not to m…

An American Muslim Abroad, Or, Things I Saw in Dubai

By Haroon Moghul

…h buildings, starting right around the same time. Talk about luxury on the cheap; it’s hard to deny a feeling of similarity. (The tower is to the Burj as a certain toupee is to hair: might the Trump Tower inadvertently mimic an Islamic motif?) The regal twin palm trees in the foreground are the world’s tallest, at some 3,500 feet each. Recently a falling coconut crushed an entire apartment complex, punching a massive hole that has filled up with…

Burying the Future: Youth Violence in Chicago

By Ibrahim Abusharif

…Walcott Avenue to be exact). It’s become a statistic to keep track of: the number of school-age children who are murdered, sometimes on school grounds, during a school year, which means the academic year is properly hyphenated. The punctuation gives bone to the unholy facts, but it also creates another set of suburban record-keeping to conjure with. In other words, it makes the reality more abstract, a bit easier to study as citizens. I teach in D…

Teaching Love: Soulforce Takes it to the Quad

By Nick Street

…ollege Avenue. Parke, 25, says she studied theology as an undergraduate at Texas Lutheran University before she moved to Seattle, where she now works for an agency that provides services to homeless youth. “Simply hiding out in the safety and comfort of a place like Seattle is not Christian,” she says in reply to a question about why she would leave a gay-friendly city to spend two months visiting places that actively discriminate against queer fo…

Pride Month & Prejudice; ‘Worrisome Time’ For LGBT People; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ciety,” he said. CNN traces the start of the backlash to early 2016 when a number of political leaders began making “unprompted attacks on Indonesia’s LGBT community.” It notes that conservative Islam is a growing political force, evident in the arrest and conviction of Jakarta’s Christian governor on blasphemy charges. The report says human rights activists have been disappointed by President Joko Widodo’s “lackluster” defense of LGBT people. Sal…

Founding Father John Adams’ Advice to Rick Perry: Don’t Meddle in Religion

By Warren Throckmorton

…ich tapestry of our city.” Jewish state representative Elliott Naishtat (D-Austin), who has been especially critical, told me that “Perry’s Prayer Summit is unlike other events in this country, such as National Prayer Days, which almost always include all faiths,” adding that “the event can only serve to put people into religious boxes that decrease the chances that there will ever be public acceptance of different groups and faiths.” Nearly all w…

Don McLeroy to Receive Eagle Forum Patriot Award

By Lauri Lebo

…ne Star chapter of the national organization founded by Phyllis Schlafly, who is now required to be in Texas’ textbooks, along with the Moral Majority. McLeroy’s award will be presented at the Texas Eagle Forum Patriot Banquet held during the annual Texas GOP Convention. Schlafly will be the banquet’s keynote speaker. And so the closed-loop continues….

Damn You Auto-Correct: Creationist Edition

By Lauri Lebo

…be possible is that the provision that permits “supplemental materials” in Texas is more flexible than for textbooks. Rather than meet all the new standards, the material only has to address some of them. Additionally, the materials aren’t purchased by the state, as with textbooks in Texas. Instead, materials approved by the board may be bought by local school districts. Former board member and young earth creationist Don McLeroy made clear the pr…