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Can The Religious Left Be Effective Again? Longer Answer: Quizás

By Daniel Schultz

…gh participation rates are increasing among these types of churches, they represent a small percentage of all churches. Fulton explains that a lot of this increase is due to the debates over immigration reform; but even factoring that in, Hispanic churches are becoming more politically active. The number of congregations might be few, but they may also be larger communities, representing a substantial number of people. In any case, the trend will…

Oklahoma Bill Would Violate Basic Freedoms, Rewrite the Ten Commandments

By Andrew L. Seidel

…the many differences between various Jewish and Christian sects in how to number and interpret these different sets of commandments. All of this I explain in my book, The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American. Seemingly small differences are magnified because Christianity has historically claimed to possess ultimate truth, so any deviation from an absolute truth is significant. Minor variations are further magnified by, as James…

Don’t Call It “Prayer Shaming”: Our Moral Failure Exposed

By Willie Dwayne Francois

…enured defense of guns. Andy Parker, father of Alison Parker, the Virginia news anchor who was murdered in August while reporting live, suggested that these invocations of prayers and positive thoughts are code words for deliberate political inaction by elected officials. The theological commentary on this shooting is what my grandmother would describe as “too heavenly minded and no earthly good.” These conversations about prayer reflect a graver…

Lessons from the Defeat of the Oklahoma Personhood Bill

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…bivalent during that state’s recent personhood battle. This could mean any number of things, of course: from the simple and unsurprising non-news that sometimes people with the same job disagree with each other; to the possibility that personhood legislation is an unsettled question for US Catholic bishops; to the question of whether the bishops’ national fight with the Obama administration over contraception coverage has hardened their other posi…

UPDATED: Oklahoma Personhood Bill Not Dead…

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…nd (i.e. being more open to amendments, say, in whatever state becomes the new personhood legislation laboratory) carries dangers. The whole selling point of the personhood position, for those who take to it, is its uncompromising nature: a fetus at any stage of development is a legal, rights-bearing person. Full stop, no exceptions. A person is a person, the end. To be open to compromise, amendments, and qualifications is to undercut the distinct…

Rumors of the Suicide of the Liberal Church Are Exaggerated: A Response to Chris Hedges

By Mark Hulsether

…n times more people than watched the Democratic Presidential debates. That number, combined with 36 million liberal Protestants (with “growing irrelevancy”), is just a bit below the viewership for the Super Bowl. As to causes of decline, if we move to the margins of demonic institutions does this slow it down or speed it up? He calls for greater vitality on the left, and I agree that this is better than steering right or being tepid—but at best wh…

Pope Francis Praised for ‘Civil Unions’ Comment, But Justice Begins at Home—In the Vatican

By Mary E. Hunt

…ke expressed expected horror—is that it’s based on scant data. That’s clue Number One that the topic is ripe for conversation and that people of varying views will use Pope Francis’ words to confirm their own positions. A look at the movie offers a context for how to interpret the text. Unless one knows better in advance, it would be easy to conclude from the film that there are just a handful of Catholic women in the world. Evgeny Afineevsky craf…

Growing Catholic Resistance to Bishops’ Crusades

By Peter Montgomery

…nt to speak on women’s issues.” In Washington State, meanwhile, “A growing number of Seattle’s Catholic parishes are saying ‘no’ to Archbishop J. Peter Sartain’s offer that churches become signature gathering points for Referendum 74, the ballot measure to roll back Washington’s recently passed same-sex marriage law.” Notably, among the parishes declining to participate are St. James Cathedral, the seat of the archdiocese, and Christ Our Hope, a n…

Obama Caves on (Another) Contraception Exemption

By Patricia Miller

…he new regulation it was denounced by the Becket Fund as insufficent. (The new accomodation was accompanied by the news that the non-profit exemption will be open to small, closely held for-profit employees as per the Hobby Lobby decision). Predictably, it was also denounced by the U.S. Conference of Catholics Bishops. In a statement on its Facebook page, the USCCB said it was “disappointed” that the new regulation didn’t broaden the exemption to…

As Pat Robertson Retires, Here Are 10 of His Most Cringeworthy Moments

By Chrissy Stroop

…ternative media ecosystem—launching CBN well over three decades before Fox News Channel came on the scene in 1996—Robertson has done incalculable damage to American civil society. In 1991, he published a book that popularized New World Order conspiracy theories among evangelicals, and his influence is reflected in our current post-truth political landscape, in which white evangelicals regularly collaborate with street-brawling fascists and are mor…