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What Pence and Kaine Reveal About Divides in Catholicism

By Patricia Miller

…Catholics switched alliances to the Republican Party, voting for Ronald Reagan in 1984. The Jesuit-educated Kaine, meanwhile, was attracted to Liberation Theology’s “blending of Catholicism and socialism,” influenced by his time volunteering in Honduras when US-backed right-wing dictators were engaged in vicious internecine conflicts with Communist-backed forces. It’s no coincidence that Catholic defection to the Republican Party during the Reaga…

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

By Paul Wallace

…ew planet—Gliese 581g—was discovered orbiting a star a mere 20 light years away in the constellation Libra. This in itself is not too big a deal, because the discovery of planets orbiting other stars (termed “exoplanets”) has become a weekly occurrence. But this planet is special because (1) it’s massive enough to retain an atmosphere, and (2) it resides squarely in the center of the so-called habitable zone of its parent star, red dwarf Gliese 58…

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

By Daniel Schultz

…n this past weekend’s One Nation Working Together rally, you’ll find this paragraph: On Thursday [Glenn] Beck warned that the march included Marxist, Communist and revolutionary groups. Among the organizations endorsing the march were the Communist Party USA, the United Church of Christ, Jewish Funds for Justice, the National Urban League, the National Baptist Convention, People for the American Way and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. My…

Halloween, Evangelicals, and the Macabre

By John W. Morehead

…ess positive note, evangelicals intensifying their critique of all things macabre and “occultic.” American evangelicalism has always had a strong sense of evil which it battles in various manifestations—frequently in the form of popular culture. This sense of the presence of and confrontation with evil, however, ramps up during the Halloween season whether the focus is the holiday itself or those minority religions associated with it. In regards t…

We Were Here Before September 11th

By Amina Wadud

…ot just condemn terrorism done by fellow Muslims; I condemn terrorism done against fellow Muslim—whether as a civil act of disobedience, or as a collective act of a powerful government. And because my condemnation of terrorism sits right there beside my condemnation of violence, oppression and coercion, it was not born out of September 11th. I condemned violence, terrorism, oppression, weapons, and war long from before I became a Muslim. Nothing h…

Special Hell: Progressive Catholics Reckon With the Rise of Trump

By Patricia Miller

…lly and freely practice your religion, as individuals, business owners and academic institutions. I will make absolutely certain religious orders like The Little Sisters of Poor are not bullied by the federal government because of their religious beliefs. And while the Catholic bishops were officially supportive of the Affordable Care Act (once they forced through the abortion restrictions they wanted), it’s not difficult to imagine them supportin…

Debate Heats Up Over “Francis Effect”

By Patricia Miller

…about the church than in the darkest days of the U.S. clerical sex abuse scandal, which had Boston at its epicenter. That’s a pretty low bar, but of course no one denies that Francis is a change for the better. As Jon O’Brien, head of Catholics for Choice, told The Guardian, Francis isn’t so much “a breath of fresh air as someone who has gone into the Vatican with an oxygen tank strapped to his back. He’s got the church out of a very difficult spo…

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

By John Wigger

…ical Empire? I was fascinated by how fast PTL grew and how quickly it fell apart. What I really wanted to know was how PTL’s rise and fall were connected. How does deep religious devotion become so entwined with money, sex, and celebrity on a Hollywood scale? A short synopsis might help: Jim and Tammy started the PTL network with half a dozen employees in a former furniture store in 1974. By 1986 PTL had annual revenues of $129 million, 2500 emplo…

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 this year on the Feast of the Annunciation the Pope will consecrate Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. While it would be unfair to assume bad intentions, it’s yet another glaring misstep in the pontiff’s handling of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and a stark, and extremely public reminder, of the West’s entirely unhelpful—and historically tone deaf—approach to Orthodox Christianity. The Pope’s decision to carry out the consecra…

Glenn Beck’s Salvation Army

By Peter Montgomery

…as entertainer and “educator” has been his intense attacks on President Obama’s theology of salvation, which he has called “evil” and “satanic.” The nature of salvation is not typically the topic of choice for political pundits. But Beck has latched onto it with a fury because he insists that President Obama’s liberation theology-influenced view of salvation is not only unchristian but un-American. Beck has become utterly enamored of religious ri…