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American Christianity Is Changing Fast: Five Stories to Watch in 2016

By Richard Flory

…ianities,” rather than the singular “Christianity.” The five key stories below evoke questions that religion-watchers will be asking for years to come. 1. The Emptying of Church Pews The trend that has received a significant amount of attention, from religious observers as well as religious leaders, is the so-called “Rise of the Religious Nones.” The number of dropouts/defectors from church involvement has risen significantly over the last several…

What Do ‘The Christians’ Believe? Easter Reflections from a Non-Christian

By Gary Laderman

…e had in how the situation was mishandled at the Vatican, reminding his followers about the true mission of the church and to focus on Jesus Christ. What do the Christians believe? The recent health care debates surfaced the radical differences that exist among Christians about health and care. On the one side are conservative Christians who see in the recent legislative victory for President Obama nothing less than the triumph of a communist-insp…

Dispatch from Charlottesville: “It Was a War Zone. It Felt Like There Were a Million Nazis.”

By Sunnivie Brydum

…n be seen in the background, facing away from the camera, wearing their yellow stole, and turning to run when the neo-Nazis arrived. Dr. Robyn Henderson-Espinoza: The nazi groups just kept coming and coming. This is an exaggeration, but it felt like there were a million nazis, to like, 100 counter-protestors. That’s an exaggeration, but I’m just saying, that the number of nazis compared to counter-protestors was unreal. I’m just like, where in the…

Why Anti-Gay Bullying is a Theological Issue

By Cody J. Sanders

…ren, LGBT people, the poor, racial minorities, etc.) fall somewhere down below. And it all makes perfect sense if you support it with a few appropriately (mis)quoted verses from the Bible. With dualistic conceptions of good and evil and hierarchical notions of value and worth, it becomes easy to know who it is okay to hate or to bully or, seemingly more benignly, to ignore. And no institutions have done more to create and perpetuate the public dis…

Protesters in Washington DC, the day before the January 6 insurrection, wrapped in American flags blow shofars.

Netanyahu’s Genocidal Religious Rhetoric isn’t Just an Appeal to the Israeli Right — He Has Another Constituency in Mind

By Brock Bahler

…” rallies that took place in the wake of the 2020 election, of Christians blowing shofars during the January 6th attack of the Capitol building, and of political campaigns such as Doug Mastriano’s bid for PA governor, whose wife told supporters, “When the Israelites came into their Promised Land . . . God had to move in mighty ways to remove their enemies. . . . Our Promised Land is Pennsylvania and we’re taking it back.” Which brings us back to I…

The Faith Outreach Canard

By Sarah Posner

…OP gains had much more to do a simpler fact: when the political winds are blowing against a party, it’s the incumbents in the swing districts that are most likely to be blown out of office. And his colleague Eric McGhee notes that 2010 looks like a reverse of 2006 — when Democrats made big congressional gains at a time when a Republican president was falling out of favor. Sapp, in his post-election lament that the Democrats didn’t listen to him en…

55% of Utah Mormons Believe LGBT People can “Change”

By Joanna Brooks

…Sundays simply believe being gay is an abomination. Change is very, very slow to come among LDS Church membership. More Mormons have rallied around Elder Packer’s hurtful speech than have carefully read the prepared official PR statement affirming LGBT humanity and dignity. Few have absorbed the nuances Church leaders have been hammering out in successive statements about LGBT issues. Many are still thinking like we were taught to in the 1970s, t…

The Devil is in the Details

By Amina Wadud

…if lost or stolen, but only if you first write down each and every serial number. Then you have to keep this information somewhere that’s not the same somewhere you keep the checks. But then they really do NOT spend just like cash—especially abroad where we meet and mix with people in their own places. Such places are not subject to our being guests there. So I do tend toward keeping travel cash in an odd place. (No, I’m not gonna share with you…

Do Space Aliens Need Baptism? The View From Gliese 581g

By Paul Wallace

…planet set squarely in the midst of the habitable zone of its ordinary yellow star. And among them is a creature called Brother Guy Consolmagno. There he is, talking to his fellow creatures about the possibility of space aliens needing to be justified before God Almighty. At one time, not very long ago, Consolmagno’s comment would have struck me as preposterous, perhaps as an expression of the Vatican’s deep need to be way out ahead of everyone e…

Commies, Blacks, Jews, the UCC and Other Threats to America

By Daniel Schultz

…ack on, no compelling ideology, no good news for anyone who hasn’t been following his worn-out shtick for thirty years. So, good if they’re afraid of the religious left. It means we’re doing our job. And just in case anyone missed the number of religious progressive groups endorsing the rally, here’s a list culled from One Nation site. Their list of endorsers is pretty long, so I apologize if I missed somebody: Rainbow PUSH Coalition The Shalom Ce…