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Reverend Billy For Mayor: Is He For Real?

By Nathan Schneider

…ke it feel like it might, in fact, be true. “If Bloomberg wins in New York City, it is the triumph of corporate capitalism in New York City,” says Durkee. But, with his collar on, Reverend Billy describes the mayor more bluntly: “We’re going to cast out this devil, children!” “Fake” Healing Post-9/11 Both Talen and Durkee had alienating experiences with religion growing up. Durkee describes her father as a “fundamentalist Muslim,” though she was r…

Religious Hostility to Gay Nigerians; The Pope’s Visit To Africa; Ireland’s Religious Schools Can’t Discriminate Against Gays; Orthodox Church in Georgia Leads Anti-Gay Forces; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…yrian man who has fled to Turkey: Life for gays in Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city, was always hidden, Halaby said. When the secular-led peaceful protests erupted against President Bashar Assad in 2011, he said he quickly joined, sure they would lead to a democratic government “that will respect everyone no matter their religion, ethnicity, sect or sexuality.” “We were very naive,” he said. “What happened was exactly the opposite.” ISIS has made a sh…

“One of Us”: Rick Santorum and the Politics of (Very Big) Family

By Kathryn Joyce

…y-goer quoted by the New York Times, 18-year-old Haley Harris, part of the Oklahoma family band that created the unofficial Santorum campaign song, “Game On!”: “If he can run his household, he can run the country,” Harris (whose pastor dad is part of her band) told the crowd. “One of the things that kind of caught our eye with Rick was the size of his family,” yet another supporter told the Washington Times in January. “We’re Gonna Outnumber Them!…

The March for Life: Grassroots Movement or Agitprop?

By Patricia Miller

…for Life President Jeanne Mancini told the Times: I don’t think that these numbers are the most important. The number most important for us is 58 million, which is the number of Americans that have been lost to abortion. But either they have the numbers or they don’t. And if they don’t, maybe the media should take a hard look at how it covers a predictable, lightly attended act of agitprop which claims to represent hundreds of thousands of people…

From Shofars to Hammers: The Spiritual Warriors of MAGA are ‘ReAwakening’ to Political Violence

By Mark Clatterbuck

…the stage for two long days. While there’s good reason to worry about the number of high-ranking military officers who used the ReAwaken rally to declare war on their political opponents—while attacking US elections and a free press—it was the voices of civilian preachers like Pastor Burns who delivered the most bellicose speeches of the event, unfailingly leaning into violent religious rhetoric. One by one, they warned that the time for battle i…

What We Really Talk About When We Talk About Health Care

By Douglas Harrison

…rise, eerily echoing the kind of activity that preceded the run-up to the Oklahoma City bombing. It’s a chilling report, one suggesting that – without a step away from the brink – we may well look back at incidents such as the murder of George Tiller and the shootings at the Holocaust museum and see the beginnings of a resurgent vigilantism among religious extremists during the age of Obama. What’s this got to do with the health care debate? For…

Thank God for Atheists?

By Julie Ingersoll

Last week Rev. Michael Down spoke at three Oklahoma City churches. Scripture readings for the day included: Exodus 21:17: “Anyone who curses his mother or father must be put to death.” Psalms 137:8-9: “Oh daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is the man who seizesyour babies and smashes their heads against the rocks.” His talk “Thank God for the New Atheists (PDF) proposes that the criticisms raised by Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris and ot…

Did We Drink the Kool-Aid in “Suicide Cult” Disappearance?

By Julie Ingersoll

…s a cult. NRM scholar Stuart Wright, author of Patriots, Politics, and the Oklahoma City Bombing, also commented to RD about the recent developments in California: The desire of the believers to retreat to the mountains to pray strikes me as an action firmly entrenched in the tradition of Christian asceticism. The rush to label the group as a ‘suicide cult’ probably says more about the mentality of law enforcement officials and sensational media t…

Bachmann Beats Palin at Christian Testimony

By Anthea Butler

…her Christian testimony for the “Pay to Pray” venues like Women of Joy in Oklahoma City this past April. Even then, she couldn’t muster up a clean narrative of her salvation, choosing rather to quote Max Lucado and Erma Brombeck. This is not the stuff of a Christian testimony. Palin has a credibility problem. By dragging her feet in deciding to get into the race, she’s left the door open for Bachmann and Rick Perry to take the Super Christian nar…

Should We Expect to See a Rise in Christian Nationalist Violence in the US?

By Nilay Saiya

…Christian nationalists carried out the bombing of a government building in Oklahoma City, the bombing of Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park, and numerous bombings of abortion clinics across the country. But Christian nationalist violence has also experienced a resurgence in recent years. Christian nationalist ideology figured prominently in the violence of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia; mass shootings at an African Ame…