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Dieting, Sex, Jesus: The Body as Moral Battleground

By Lynne Gerber

…ckfire when people stop making positive changes in their lives because the number on a scale doesn’t change. In terms of ex-gay ministries I think it is the perception that people who engage in these ministries are in deep denial and are self-deluded. Some probably are. But many whom I spoke with who have been in these ministries for years or decades foster no illusions about having become heterosexual. What they do know is that they have made a s…

Obama Caves on (Another) Contraception Exemption

By Patricia Miller

…he new regulation it was denounced by the Becket Fund as insufficent. (The new accomodation was accompanied by the news that the non-profit exemption will be open to small, closely held for-profit employees as per the Hobby Lobby decision). Predictably, it was also denounced by the U.S. Conference of Catholics Bishops. In a statement on its Facebook page, the USCCB said it was “disappointed” that the new regulation didn’t broaden the exemption to…

2017 Around the World: Progress and Persecution For LGBT People

By Peter Montgomery

…mittee’s Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, in New York. The World Congress of Families’ 2018 global summit will be held in Moldova. According to Tass, “Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia Kirill I has accepted the invitation from President Igor Dodon of Moldova to make a pastoral visit to the republic” during the WCF gathering in September. “Dodon sayd Kirill I and he had discussed the importance of protecting and conso…

Swimming Against the Tide: Religious (Non) Affiliation Might Not Mean What You Think It Means

By Timothy King

…llowing such a line of reasoning might mean we are seeing an uptick in the number of American’s who will report a life-changing Christian experience while simultaneously being less likely to identify with any particular Christian institution. This raises questions about the complicated relationship between Americans and their willingness to affiliate with large institutions (religious and otherwise) in general. The rate of decline in affiliation f…

If You Liked The Martian You’ll Love These 3 Sci-Fi Shorts

By Andrew Aghapour

…. Luckily, Weir offers a treasure trove of short stories on his website, a number of which break with The Martian’s goal of approximating reality, grappling instead with some of the same issues that we discuss here at The Cubit. Without further ado, here are the top three short stories for anyone jonesing for more Weir: Bored World. The story of a mischievous, trans-dimensional plane of existence. Is this a god, or the story of sci-fi itself? Anti…

Five Social Media Trends that are Reshaping Religion

By Elizabeth Drescher

…into face-to-face relationships. If the folks at Nielsen are correct, smartphones will continue to overtake, uh, dumb phones, making app-based connection and information-sharing a continuing growth area. Religiously-themed apps are certain to be an important part of that, but unless they grasp the digital trinity of social engagement, spiritual meaning, and incarnational potential that makes such apps truly worthwhile for believers and seekers. Th…

The Revolution Will Not Be Fetishized: Taking Resistance Beyond the Spiritual Industrial Complex

By Andrea R. Jain

…that guarantees both freedom of and from religion. Hence, I am certain the number of self-proclaimed “spiritual but not religious” people at the marches on January 21st was significant. But, more importantly, I wonder what those spiritual people will do now to resist the oppressive policies and efforts of the Trump administration? It is not enough to raise their signs at Women’s Marches, lower their bodies into downward dog at Lolë “peace” events,…

Conservative Christianity and Its Discontents

By Karl Giberson and Randall J. Stephens

…reasonable authority, have come to sympathize with and even celebrate Fox News’ most well-known anti-intellectual Bill O’Reilly. O’Reilly, who pitted his understanding of science against that of Richard Dawkins in a recent show, is fond of scoffing, “sorry, professor, not buying it,” suggesting that expertise is really just opinion. A number of thoughtful evangelicals are alarmed at the surging anti-intellectualism within their ranks. And there a…

The “Mormon Moment” Yields… Not So Much

By Joanna Brooks

…lves: down from 65% of Americans surveyed to 61%. Some measurable gains have been made among mainline Protestants: 28% surveyed in 2011 said they have “a lot in common” with Mormons; now, that proportion is 42%. And when asked to give a one asked to give a one-word descriptor of Mormonism, the number of respondents offering a positive word like “good,” or “honest,” increased from 18% in 2011 to 24% in 2012. All of these gains were concentrated a…

Lessons from the Defeat of the Oklahoma Personhood Bill

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…bivalent during that state’s recent personhood battle. This could mean any number of things, of course: from the simple and unsurprising non-news that sometimes people with the same job disagree with each other; to the possibility that personhood legislation is an unsettled question for US Catholic bishops; to the question of whether the bishops’ national fight with the Obama administration over contraception coverage has hardened their other posi…