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After More Mass Shootings It’s Time to Call Out White Supremacy in the Pews

By Peter Laarman

…what’s going on, but too few seem capable of saying it. We now have a fair number of political and civic leaders who are willing to say the word trauma and talk about the all-pervasive violence in this culture, not to mention the extent of mental disturbance and the fact that American civilians have more assault rifles in their possession than does the U.S. military. All well and good. But we have too few leaders who will talk about the deeper roo…

New Reports Reveal Global Persecution of Nonbelievers

By Austin Dacey

…o “blasphemous content.” The IHEU reports being contacted by an increasing number of secularist groups organizing on Facebook, including groups in Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Malaysia, Pakistan, Tunisia, Turkey, and Sudan. In all of this, the United States is an anomaly since it rejects even laws against religious hate speech, which were found in 36 of 45 European states in 2011. It’s the best place in the wo…

More Than Big Hair and Money: Jim, Tammy Faye and the Media “Holy Wars” of the 80s

By John Wigger

…some of Jim and Tammy’s appeal. PTL was all about images so there were any number of options. Too bad books can’t come with a dozen different covers to choose from. Is there a book out there you wish you had written? Which one? Why? I love the writing style of Lawrence Wright and Hampton Sides. They are both masters at weaving nonfiction into a page-turner. Anything half as good would be fine with me. What’s your next book? I’m not sure yet. Hopef…

The Only Common Denominator of American Conservatism is Anti-Blackness

By Yannick Marshall

…damentally post-racist country, the racists “are just a few idiots,” not a number tallied in the millions. In “conservatism,” the intellectual legacy of the Confederacy has been normalized and an entire population of Negrophobes is absorbed into society and allowed space to push their anti-Black agenda everywhere from the Senate floor to bank cubicles. It’s been said that politics is the continuation of war by other means. After the surrender at A…

How the Study of Evangelicalism Has Blinded Us to the Problems in Evangelical Culture

By Christopher D. Cantwell

…hat that term means to them. There’s a certain irony here, in that an Anglophone movement that once saw itself as uniquely positioned to save the world is now looking to the globe to salvage its reputation. ‘Evangelical’ as metaphor Noll, Marsden, and Bebbington have each retired in recent years, making Evangelicals something of a testament to their centrality to the field. The text concludes with a new essay from each editor that seeks to steward…

Welcome to the Shari’ah Conspiracy Theory Industry

By Sarah Posner

…office, that Muslims hate America, and that the military is recruiting a “spiritual army” to fight Islam, is a “Team Leader” for the Center for Security Policy’s “Sharia: The Threat To America.” Gaffney’s deployment of his military man, Boykin, as “Team leader” is emblematic of how this crusade against Islam is religiously motivated for certain right-wing evangelical Christians. (Recent polling data indicates that white evangelicals are more like…

Why Anti-Gay Bullying is a Theological Issue

By Cody J. Sanders

…e of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities. I cannot count the number of times I have heard well-meaning, good-hearted people respond to this appeal, saying, “Things are a lot better for gay people today than they were several years (or decades) ago. In time, our society (or churches) will come around on this issue.” To these friends and others, I must say, “It’s time.” For Lucas, Brown, Clementi, Walsh, and Chase the time is up. For t…

Sacred&Profane: Wilco Worship and the “Churn” in American Religion

By Gary Laderman

…Faith in Flux” open our eyes to a shifting and shifty religious landscape, spiritual ground not quite as stable and secure as theologians and statisticians would like it to be in the twenty-first century. Given the kind of map these surveys are drawing, there’s only one game in town for scholars of religion: the surge in no religion and non-affiliated statuses, and even more specifically, seeking signs of religious life among the increasing number…

Americans Say Religion is “Losing Influence”

By Diane Winston

…y it would be positive for society if more Americans were religious.” What planet do these Americans live on? Here in the U.S., religious fervor is at the center of a 30-year culture war that has debased civic discourse and rendered our nation ungovernable. Worldwide, religious sentiments have been mobilized to torture and murder. I understand that religion itself is not to blame; followers can distort religious teachings and politicians can cloak…

Sacred&Profane: The Living Dead

By Gary Laderman

…s presidential campaign has rattled the bones of the dead and awakened the spirits from the past, haunting the living in present times of war, economic turmoil, and environmental crisis. A stretch, you say? Unnecessarily morose, over-determined, overly-brooding commentary that profanes the sacrality of children’s fun and games, you think? Historians are not usually the life of the party, but history does shed light in the darkness, and the history…