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NOM Claims Victimhood for the Holidays

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…r who was rude and I had every right to walk away after that.) Perhaps the best thing to do this holiday season—if you simply cannot avoid the family gathering—is arm yourself with two pieces of information. First, insist that your family members read this amazing article from a judge in Minnesota who married “a dying Minneapolis man to his partner of 38 years.” Minnesota is facing a vote on an amendment to ban marriage equality. Judge Lloyd Zimme…

Decoding Rick Warren’s Appreciation for Chick-fil-A

By Elizabeth Drescher

…ssly. We can disagree all day long about whether taxing the wealthy is the best way to heal the economy or which direction the toilet paper roll should go and still be the best of friends. But when you speak and act in ways that seek to limit the civil liberties, increase the risk of discrimination and violence, and damage the psychological and spiritual well-being of me and people like me as a group, you are not being loving. You are not being co…

Silence of Latino Religious Leaders Enable GOP Tolerance of Trump Spectacle

By Arlene M. Sanchez Walsh

…e is the GOP now, whose branding with Latino/a voters was next to nil? The best-case scenario is that it can’t get any worse. And where are the religious leaders who’ve dedicated a significant portion of their cache to claims that they can work with the GOP and get them to tone down the invective against their church members? Well, there are always those spurious religious freedom cases to rally around, making sure the local panaderia doesn’t make…

Why is the State Department Opening an Office of “Religious Engagement”?

By Austin Dacey

…e of law, and minority rights in their societies. When the U.S. government bestows high-level diplomatic attention instead on select (typically male, adult, and non-democratically appointed) spokespersons, it aids them in consolidating their own power and authority within their communities. The Religion and Foreign Policy Working Group does not ignore this potential for discrimination. It writes of the importance of partnering with “women religiou…

Will a New Dawkins Foundation-Sponsored App Help Atheists Talk to Believers?

By Alana Massey

…ill, and several of the scenarios reflect a deep disdain for believers. At times, the app casts believers as belligerent doofuses: …or violent bullies: Another scenario assumes that you might be tempted to lecture an intoxicated panhandler about epistemology and divine experience: These particular interactions may seem contrived, but hostility is a common experience for many non-believers. Atheos is coming at a time when Americans continue to larg…

LDS Church Praised for “Good Sense and Sanity” on Immigration Policy

By Joanna Brooks

…eaning of “neighbor” includes all of God’s children, in all places, at all times. * We recognize an ever-present need to strengthen families. Families are meant to be together. Forced separation of working parents from their children weakens families and damages society. * We acknowledge that every nation has the right to enforce its laws and secure its borders. All persons subject to a nation’s laws are accountable for their acts in relation to t…

Jesus Said Punch Up, Not Down: Why William Barber’s Attack on the Religious Right May Not Be What It Seems

By Daniel Schultz

…ith—that government programs are an ineffective means of poverty relief at best, and at worst, a counter-productive or even predatory response to the poor. When I say “an article of faith” here, I am not being critical: there are many American Christians who believe that taxes are theft, government hurts more than it helps, and that the right way to address poverty is through religious charity only, not public policy. People like Rev. Barber and I…

Is Bill Barr’s Belief in a Powerful President Actually Religious? A ‘High Papal’ Fable

By Ivan Strenski

…Holland also claims seven novels to his name, several TV documentaries, a number of radio broadcasts, a play or two, and a translation of Herodotus’s Histories, all the while holding down a staff position with The Guardian. Taken as a whole, Holland’s entire oeuvre seems a colossal myth-making enterprise geared to reintroducing the West to its own formation. Taken in itself, Dominion often maddeningly, sometimes entertainingly, rambles through tw…

Talmud on Trial: Interfaith Dialogue in the 13th Century

By Michael Schulson

…good thing. And we tend to assume, in our interfaith educations, that the best way to learn about another religion is to study its texts and its official positions. The Paris trial challenges both. Perhaps it’s best to encounter religions in the real world, informally, with a focus on actual actions, not official words. Pope Benedict XVI worked hard to improve the Church’s interfaith profile, with limited success. While his largely positive attit…

Reza Aslan’s Viral Fox News Interview Reveals More Than Just Christian Privilege

By Jeffrey Scholes

…reen are likely to tune in (or, more accurately, log on) to cheer the next time she scolds a non-Christian, or to feel smug satisfaction the next time she “embarrasses” herself. But in another sense, both sides lost. While the interview increased Aslan’s book sales, the episode only reinforces the notion that scholars must rely on controversy to do so. And while displays of Christian privilege may provide a temporary bump in traffic, the network …