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Why #FreeBritney is an #Exvangelical Cause

By R.L. Stollar

…faith communities. The Calvary Chapel network consists of almost 1,800 non-denominational evangelical churches around the world. It was founded by pastor Chuck Smith in 1965 in Costa Mesa, California and grew out of the Jesus Movement of the 60s and 70s. “Today,” says Carly Fox of Calvary Chapel Watch, “the vast majority of Calvary Chapels are far-right, authoritarian, evangelical churches that embrace white supremacist thinking, Christian Nation…

Pastor of Kentucky Church Severed From Baptists Over LGBT Inclusion: Not Activism, Just Honesty

By Mike Greer

…tual home for many students, staff, and distinguished professors. Today the 800-member church is a diverse community of faith including people of various races, ethnic backgrounds, sexual orientation, and world-views. Refugees and immigrants compose roughly one-third of the congregation. The church is heavily invested in a wide array of social ministries in the Commonwealth, the U.S., and the world. Below are excerpts from a conversation with the…

What To Do When Fred Phelps Arrives in Your Neighborhood

By Susan Henking

…: educability. And if you want to check out some of the wonderful real-life-not-fantasy anti-Westboro picketing ever, click here and add them to your picketing, fantastical or real. In my fantasy, the family and friends of Devin Snyder understand those called to protest against Phelps in Cohocton as acting in ways consonant with the sergeant’s decision to join an Army and participate in a war with which some of those same protestors disagree. In…

Religious Right Targets Obama Picks, Daschle and Holder

By Bill Berkowitz

…d can sign the boycott Pepsi pledge here or you can call the company at 914-253-2000 or 1-800-433-2652 and thank them for supporting human rights.) Worst Anti-Gay Voices: The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) has compiled a list of “the most outrageous and defamatory comments about gays, lesbians or transgender people last year.” According to On Top Magazine, “leading the list is Bill O’Reilly, author and host of Fox News’ The O’Re…

Why Faith Needs Redemptive Struggle to Be Meaningful

By Liz Theoharis

…e together to build a powerful movement. He summons us to resist the divide-and-conquer strategy of the Pharoahs of our day, uniting to transform society for the benefit of all. Rev. Barber consistently emphasizes the sacredness of all life. He maintains that if we care about one death at the hands of a cop, then we have to care just as much about 2,800 deaths occurring each year due to lack of Medicaid expansion in North Carolina. He cautions us…

Partisanship Is The New Civil Religion

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…rtisan politics. The devotional speaker who had been invited to address the 800-plus crowd that evening spoke mainly about the need for Christians to think and act “eschatologically,” orienting their practices always to their vision of ultimate reconciliation which is portrayed as the eschatological banquet of God. Then she used an example to drive the radical nature of Christian reconciliation home to her audience. She was born and raised a Democ…

The Right Questions Kamala Harris’ Blackness — Yet as Long as She Holds Any Power She’ll Always Be Too Black for Them

By Mary Rambaran-Olm

…y likes half of her policies and doesn’t want to admit it because she’s a B-B-Bl-… a woman. Perhaps we can nudge the Republican VP-nominee and Mountain Dew defender, JD Vance (whose various birth certificate alterations don’t appear to be of concern to the Right), to weigh in on her make-up skills since he’s so precise with his eyeliner. Look, I’m not telling you to vote for a Black woman or an orange person (whose running mate may want to pick up…

The Burning Houses of Worship We Missed

By Gordon Haber

…dian published satellite images of the mosque in a kind of grotesque before-and-after. The first image, from 2017, shows the mosque from above, casting an elongated shadow. The second image shows “a smooth patch of earth.” There’s a less radical but nevertheless disturbing story about China’s Kargilik Mosque. According to Radio Free Asia, the Chinese authorities stripped the 16th century building of its Islamic imagery and festooned it instead wit…

Rep. Cleaver’s ‘Awoman’ Prayer Enrages Christian Nationalists Who Taste Their Own Medicine and Still Miss the Point

By Andrew L. Seidel

…tely so, wielding prayer like a cudgel. The Pennsylvania legislator’s Jesus-laden, jaw-dropping prayer uttered to intimidate the state’s first female Muslim legislator. A preacher echoed this prayer, telling the Virginia House of Delegates that “every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord.” The Georgia House suffered through a sermon and then a prayer, both of which condemned all non-Baptists to an eternity of torture and…

Culture Wars Today, Tomorrow, and Forever?

By Bill Berkowitz

…idge] would join different kinds of congregations…Tchividjian’s vigorous, 5-1/2-year-old church with attendance of 600 to 700, and an established, half-century-old church of 2,200 members and weekly attendance of 1,800.” According to the newspaper, “Tchividjian was cautious about discussing any changes he might make at the helm of Coral Ridge. However, he said the Coral Ridge leaders had asked him to bring the ‘vision’ he instilled at New City Chu…