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Trayvon Martin and American Exceptionalism

By Anthea Butler

….” Trayvon’s trip to the 7-11 was not just a run to the store, but another statistic in the long arc of racialized violence in America. George Zimmerman, who shot Trayvon in his role as neighborhood watch captain and executioner, is, according to his father, “half Hispanic with black friends.” Really? Having a black friend makes it okay to shoot a black person? Zimmerman, a serial 911 caller, decided to hunt and kill Trayvon after muttering “These…

“Giving Godhead”: A Bloody Vision of Religion’s Deepest Influence

By Spencer Dew

…nce from this world of mortal coiling. As Krieger writes, winking even as she’s pierced in the side: “too bad there is / no christ whistle / or I would blow.”…

Recovering From Rejection: The Second Coming of Ted Haggard

By Wendy Norris

Pastor Ted stands astride two hay bales triumphant and seemingly oblivious to the frigid night air inside the Haggard family barn, where 75 people have gathered for a prayer service. Dressed in jeans and a favorite gray NYC sweatshirt, Haggard launches into a Borscht Belt routine for evangelicals that plays to raucous laughter. He wisecracks that God’s preoccupation with keeping tabs on Barack Obama may delay immediate answers to their prayers. A…

“You’ve Never Met a Muslim”

By Hussein Rashid

…ntry giving talks about Muslims after 9/11, but the safest, warmest, and most trusting I ever felt was in New York. That was my country, that was my faith. We do not turn away in ignorance. We do not turn ignorance to fear, and fear into hate. Returning to my city, I was welcomed once more. And I encountered the vibrancy of faith that I missed so much in my time away. The symphony of the Sh’ma, of the Lord’s Prayer, of the Fatiha, of Om Namah Shiv…

Milquetoast Liberal Religion Won’t Challenge Conservative Values: A History Lesson

By Sheila D. Collins

…arge part of the Great Plains, restored wildlife and built a system of over 800 state and county parks. They electrified an entire region of the country, bringing what had been America’s “Third World” up to 20th century standards. They created works of art, gave concerts, set up theaters throughout the country, ran nursery schools, served over 1.2 billion school lunches to needy children, gave immunizations, taught illiterate adults to read and wr…

Malta Adopts Marriage Equality Over Objections of Catholics and Evangelicals; And More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…w pastoral care of LGBT people. Marriage equality’s passage is but the latest step for LGBT equality taken by the small island nation: it passed a law on transgender and intersex rights that is considered the gold standard in Europe; it was the first nation in Europe to ban conversion therapy; it has welcomed an openly transgender legislator; and it has witnessed true dialoguehappen between the bishops and other Catholics. More than 90% of Maltese…

Religious Exceptions Not So Exceptional According to New Study

By Patricia Miller

…ny of the nonprofits who have sought the accommodation are likely health systems or educational institutions affiliated with the Catholic Church, which objects to birth control.” According to Kaiser, there are “over 6,800 Catholic schools (5% of the national total and 22% of all private schools), 645 Catholic nonprofit hospitals, and more than 160 Catholic Charities agencies across the country.” While most Catholic health care institutions have ac…

Heterosexual Martyrs and Gay Saints: Did AIDS Coverage Clear the Way for LGBT Equality?

By Diane Winston

…l found that Roman Catholic and non-evangelical Christians were among “the strongest supporters of the rights of AIDS victims” and that 50 percent of the public (up 8 percent in four months) disagreed that AIDS was “a divine punishment for moral decline.” Besides casting AIDS as a pastoral challenge, reporters also depicted it as a spiritual trial, replete with heterosexual martyrs and gay saints. The former were typically women who, infected by t…

Clergy May Soon Find Taxes Soaring As Result of an Under-the-Radar Ruling

By Patrick Hornbeck

…ousing allowance exemption violates the First Amendment’s prohibition against the establishment of religion. Crabb had reached an identical conclusion at an earlier stage of the litigation, in 2013, but she was overruled on procedural grounds by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Crabb based her decision on the constitutional test that the Supreme Court had articulated in Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971), which requires that a law be invalidated if it…

Vatican Reverses Anti-Liberation Policies in Mexico

By Ruth Chojnacki and Jennifer Scheper Hughes

…ng mountain highlands and the vast Lacandon Jungle in one of Mexico’s poorest states. Ruiz responded to the extreme poverty and marginalization of the diocese’s majority indigenous population with pastoral innovations that promoted liberation on the ground. With financial support from Mexico’s Papal Nuncio, the bishop established schools for catechists that drew scores of Maya indigenous to San Cristóbal where they encountered the Catholic teachin…