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

By John Wigger

…meant that they had no shortage of supporters and critics on either side, particularly with regard to the prosperity gospel. What alternative title would you give the book? My working title was Pressed Down, Shaken Together, which comes from one of the favorite Bible verses of prosperity preachers at the time, including Jim Bakker. But my editor thought that it was too obscure for most readers and I’m sure she was right. How do you feel about the…

The Only Common Denominator of American Conservatism is Anti-Blackness

By Yannick Marshall

…believed. And remain a symbol of beauty in the world no matter how many scars are on Prissy’s back. Preventing that ‘eureka moment’ Republican officials’ voter registration purges and restricting the possibility of voting for Black people is the pursuit of Klan business by other means. They will say, however, that they aim to protect voting rights. It’s never enough to beat Black people down. We must be mocked. Even if every one of a conservative…

How the Study of Evangelicalism Has Blinded Us to the Problems in Evangelical Culture

By Christopher D. Cantwell

…henomenon, the editors conclude, and the troubling features of any particular part of the movement should not distract us from the integrity of the whole. Noll even ends the collection with yet another metaphorical flourish, suggesting that scholars no longer think of evangelicalism as a religious “World Series,” where events in the United States determine a victor, but as a “World Cup,” where an international diversity of teams are on display. Th…

Modern Vampires: Your Neighbors and Spouses

By Joseph Laycock

…cribed my methodology as an ethnographer. As a religion scholar, I am not particularly interested in whether the subjective experiences described by vampires are “real” any more than I would be interested in empirically questioning a Christian’s experience of the Holy Spirit. But there were still many obstacles to navigate regarding the metaphysical claims of vampires. Of particular controversy was the existence of subtle energy or “psi,” which ma…

New Reports Reveal Global Persecution of Nonbelievers

By Austin Dacey

…few countries around the world criminalize irreligion as such, many impose arbitrary burdens on secular manifestations of conscience that are not experienced by others. These include laws and policies regulating: • apostasy and religious conversion; • blasphemy and religious criticism; • compulsory religious registration, usually with a government proscribed list of permitted religions; • religious requirements or restrictions on government ID car…

Americans Say Religion is “Losing Influence”

By Diane Winston

…ans live on? Here in the U.S., religious fervor is at the center of a 30-year culture war that has debased civic discourse and rendered our nation ungovernable. Worldwide, religious sentiments have been mobilized to torture and murder. I understand that religion itself is not to blame; followers can distort religious teachings and politicians can cloak ethnic hostilities and turf wars in religious language. Yet even so—people believe that they are…

Sacred&Profane: The Living Dead

By Gary Laderman

…red and lugubrious reflections, but the Halloween season this year has me particularly spooked. There are ghosts and graves in the yards of my neighborhood, and the number of skeletons—reclining on lawn chairs, sprouting up from the ground, beckoning from the shadows—has transformed the suburban landscape into a set for a George Romero film. In addition, and beyond bland suburbia, monsters, ghosts, skeletons, vampires, and other playful dead inhab…

The Real Goal of Pro-Life Movement Support for Scott Brown: Kill Health Care Reform

By Sarah Posner

…osmo-posing hottie could become a hero of the religious right and the standard-bearer of a new conservative ascendancy. As the Democrats scramble to figure out whether to send the Senate health care bill to the House to avoid another vote in the Senate with Brown seated, the American Center for Law and Justice is gearing up for a legal battle: The people of Massachusetts have spoken and Sen. Brown must be seated without delay in the Senate. Any a…

Travolta Airlifts Scientology, Supplies, to Haiti

By Becky Garrison

…other recovery workers the opportunity to partake in the “purification rundown” developed by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. Despite intense criticism of this detox program from the medical facility, this program remains in operation. New York City was by no means the only disaster site targeted for clearing by the Church of Scientology. Whenever one finds a disaster that makes the international news (like the tsunami in Indonesia), one can fi…

UPDATED: Religion Has Been Framed; Covering the Aga Khan’s Visit

By Hussein Rashid

…broke off from the main Shiite branch of Islam.” The fact that there is a larger number of non-Isma’ili Shi’ah does not make them the main branch. If the central belief of Shi’ism is the belief of Imamah, then the only group with a present, living Imam are the Isma’ilis, making them the main group. The point is that there are many ways to claim superiority, but the reality is most Muslims have lived with various other communities of interpretation…