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The American Media’s Longterm Ambivalence About the Papacy

By Peter Manseau

…rnalism. From its start in 1936, Life offered a very different take on the place of religion in America. While Time’s religious coverage moved within an orbit held by the gravity of authority, Life offered glimpses of religion as it was lived. The magazine’s first Catholic cover showed a nun bent over an industrial-sized kitchen bowl, kneading a ball of dough so large it seems she might lose an arm. Over the caption “Franciscan retreat,” the image…

Dear White Evangelicals: A Black Square Ain’t Gonna Cut It

By Jhas Williams

…ct that they “stand with their black brothers and sisters in Christ” is at best, laughable. At worst it stirs up old trauma that I and others who share my experience have spent small fortunes in therapy and other personal work to undo. And in some sad sense, we’re the fortunate ones. Others have unintentionally internalized this hatred which manifested later in a variety of self-destructive behaviors. It’s the price so many have had to pay for the…

This Year in Satanism

By Joseph Laycock

…alism that Harvard has traditionally espoused. JUNE In June, Greaves did a number of interviews taking aim at Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and his efforts to ban gay marriage and limit access to abortion. A native of Detroit, Greaves called Snyder “an idiot governor.” He discussed campaigns that would invoke the free exercise clause to challenge Snyder’s legislation, including the assertions that gay marriage is a Satanic sacrament and that Satan…

Special Hell: Progressive Catholics Reckon With the Rise of Trump

By Patricia Miller

…oductive rights to win back working class Catholics. Krueger says that the best political way forward for the Democrats is what he calls a “50-state/all constituencies” strategy that includes a strong Catholic outreach component. He notes that Hillary Clinton’s outreach to Catholics was notably less robust than Barack Obama’s. She didn’t recruit prominent Catholic backers the way that Obama did and skipped important Catholic outreach opportunities…

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

By John Wigger

…nterviewed dozens of people for the book, some of whom thought PTL was the best thing they had ever been involved with and others who thought it was the worst. Jim and Tammy were nothing if not provocative. They put themselves at the center of some of the biggest divides in American religion and culture, which meant that they had no shortage of supporters and critics on either side, particularly with regard to the prosperity gospel. What alternati…

Holy Father, You’re Not Helping: The Problem with the Pope’s Plan to Consecrate Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary

By Katherine Kelaidis

…t of the Nicene Creed)—two issues that helped drive the split in the first place. In light of this history, consecrating two countries with overwhelmingly Orthodox majorities to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, particularly in response to a prophecy that one of those countries will be converted is, at best, problematic. On an entirely pragmatic level, these kinds of actions feed the fears of the most reactionary elements in the Orthodox world, for wh…

Glenn Beck’s Salvation Army

By Peter Montgomery

…faith through a prism of American nationalism? Not to mention the growing number of Americans without any religious commitment? Beck tells us, “you must fall to your knees and you must reconnect with God. He is not asking you. He is commanding us as a people to get behind Him. He will right the wrongs. We will have to pay a price because we lived outside of His laws. We will have to pay a price, but every day we don’t get behind Him, the price ge…

Orthodox Jews Begin to Reckon with Sexual Abuse

By Paul Berger

…ss prevalent in the Orthodox community than anywhere else; but there are a number of peculiarities to Orthodox Jewish life that have made the reporting of abuse less common than in society at large. “I think the subject of abuse is probably the same in any religious community,” says Michael Salomon, a Long Island psychiatrist, who has just finished working on an as-yet-unpublished book about sexual abuse in the Orthodox world. “Different religions…

New Reports Reveal Global Persecution of Nonbelievers

By Austin Dacey

…ate speech, which were found in 36 of 45 European states in 2011. It’s the best place in the world to be a secularist. Several years ago I co-authored an article in Free Inquiry magazine, entitled “Atheism is not a Civil Rights Issue,” criticizing atheist activists in the U.S. for comparing their struggles to the struggles of women, African Americans, and GLBTQ citizens. On a global scale, however, secularism most certainly is an issue of civil ri…

My Business, Myself: Piercing the Corporate Veil

By Howard M. Friedman

…ed by businesses like Annex challenge the ACA’s contraception mandate on a number of grounds. The most significant challenge invokes the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, claiming that the insurance coverage mandate imposes a substantial burden on the free exercise of religion. Annex Medical lost its claim because the court concluded that the mandate does not impose a substantial burden on religious exercise and in the widely-publicized H…