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The Harlot Shall Be Burned with Fire: Biblical Literalism in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

By Sarah Sentilles

…s belonged to. On television, the dead bodies were women’s; on the evening news, they were the bodies of people from other countries, and usually they weren’t white. Judith Butler argues in Precarious Life that whose dead bodies we are allowed to see, and whose remain hidden, tell us something about which lives are understood to be grievable, mournable; about which lives count as lives. At one point in Dragon Tattoo a cat is killed, its mutilated…

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

By Patricia Miller

…Department of Health and Human Services, came from the Alliance Defending Freedom, where he represented Conestoga Wood Specialties in its successful challenge, along with Hobby Lobby, to the contraceptive mandate. Bowman argues that there is no evidence that the mandate reduced the number of unintended pregnancies and has disputed that there are any ill health effects related to unintended pregnancy. Allowing Catholic Church-affiliated adoption a…

A Question for Hobby Lobby Supporters…

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…aception. So is the salient difference the size of the list? Is there some number of things-this-paper-can-be-used-for that puts the employer at a safe moral distance from the act, where previously they had been complicit? If so, what’s the number? How long does the list of possible uses have to be to assuage the employer’s conscience enough to let the employees use their compensation for things the employer finds morally repugnant? See, here’s th…

A ‘Pro-Life’ Buttigieg Ambush, Trump’s Corrupt Counsel, and More

By Daniel Schultz

…st a June 12 Graham event, citing a number of statements by the evangelist “which we consider to be incompatible with our values.” Lest you think this is strictly a Brit thing, the same article notes that Graham has also been met with protests in Florida. He’s taken the news in typical stride: In a statement to Newsweek Jan. 28, Graham said he believes he is facing discrimination because of his religious beliefs. “It is wrong for venue managers an…

Dirty Money in the Appalachian Church: Six Years After Deadly Coal Mine Disaster, Where Are We Now?

By Michael J. Iafrate

…fine. Blankenship funded the construction, from the ground up, of a brand-new gymnasium for Sacred Heart school, complete with brand new sports equipment, and full scholarships for 12 students for their six-year education. And while Fr. Harry Dunn, former pastor of Sacred Heart, told me that the gifts were made with no strings attached—and that he had personally told Blankenship neither he nor Massey Energy should expect the church’s endorsement…

Religious Kids Are More Selfish: The Stickers Don’t Lie

By Michael Schulson

…eligion,” as something that you could then choose, reject, or petition for freedom of. The choice to constellate certain kinds of rituals, stories, propositions and epistemological modes into a single package called “religion” is a fairly recent, European, and Protestant phenomenon. Similarly, the idea that religiousness is separable from the rest of culture, in such a way that you can see it quantifiably motivating certain behaviors, would seem a…

Transgender and Christian: Finding Identity

By Jori Lewis

…ansgender Christians, he said he didn’t know what he was going to find. He contacted people through a transgender Christian internet group and found people in churches across the country. “I was impressed by their personal faith and their efforts to sort of find a home for their Christianity, for their own Christian identity,” he said. Some had found a way to look at the Bible and find themselves in it. And not in the abomination, sin and hellfire…

Hold Your Applause: Potential Changes to Roles of Catholic Women and LGBTQ+ People May Just Be Vatican Breadcrumbing

By Mary E. Hunt

…erstandably praised the move. There’s also a provision to change the usual number of 10 men from religious congregations who can vote in synods to five women religious and five men religious. Why they’re somehow in a different category than other lay people remains unclear, but this counts as progress. Nathalie Becquart, a French woman and a member of the Congregation of Xavières, was named an undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops making her the…

Religious Leaders Need ‘Empty the Pews’ Which Chronicles the Darker Side of the ‘Nones’ Phenomenon

By Kaya Oakes

…lennial and Gen X believers are a regular feature in secular news—Religion News Service even publishes an entire column dedicated to statistical data on Nones, compiled by the sociologist Ryan Burge—and a growing number of books exploring the narrative stories of Nones have appeared in recent years, including a book of my own. Empty the Pews: Stories of Leaving the Church Chrissy Stroop and Lauren O’Neal Epiphany Publishing November 29, 2019 What…

Francis Must Make Changes to Have a Real Effect

By Patricia Miller

…s remained fairly steady in recent decades is “the disproportionately high number of Catholics among immigrants to the U.S.,” which has masked “the large number of people who have left the Catholic church.” According to Pew, approximately one-third of those raised Catholic have left the church and 10 percent of all Americans are former Catholics. If you were a business losing one-third of your customers, wouldn’t you want to make some changes? Sur…