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Why is the State Department Opening an Office of “Religious Engagement”?

By Austin Dacey

…e of law, and minority rights in their societies. When the U.S. government bestows high-level diplomatic attention instead on select (typically male, adult, and non-democratically appointed) spokespersons, it aids them in consolidating their own power and authority within their communities. The Religion and Foreign Policy Working Group does not ignore this potential for discrimination. It writes of the importance of partnering with “women religiou…

“I ‘Came Out’ For Marriage Equality”: An Anti-Gay Activist Changes His Mind

By Welton Gaddy

…ies of public events in support of marriage equality—particularly to those sites around the country that I visited last year during the tour. And I want to go to these sites again, and this time stand up for marriage equality, not against it. And one of those stops was Washington, DC, and so I hope to make it to the Capitol this summer. I’ll also be in New York City on June 11th, I’m going to have an event there as well. So I do intend to be activ…

Patriotism and Piety—Not For Conservatives Only

By Ira Chernus

…aring. But it’s lousy strategy. If you want to win, you’ve got to have the best possible intelligence about what the other side is up to. Hierarchy, Loyalty, Sanctity If you listen to most conservatives, you’ll hear them saying one thing over and over: Let’s go to a religious worship service. For decades now, there’s been a clear statistical correlation: the more often you attend those services, the more likely you are to vote Republican. It’s an…

To the One-Percenters, With Love

By Garret Keizer

…o regroup the protesters who’ve been scattered by the police. Is money the best thing you have to leave your grandchildren? Is a killing in the market your best incentive for not killing yourself? Yes, some of your colleagues would laugh at you if you went out to protest. Marie Antoinette laughed too, until she found herself smiling up from the bottom of a wicker basket. The image will seem over-the-top only to the slow learners. I mean tho…

‘Pure White’ Examines the White Supremacist Origins of Evangelical Purity Culture

By Emma Cieslik

…be a strong nation, it needs to have a moral core. And that moral core is best defined by evangelical Christian teachings. So, there you have this formula that allows White evangelicals to demonstrate their right to political power: If we don’t have political power, everything’s in trouble. So again, this is the White Christian nationalism that works, not just on the popular level, but also on the political level—and this has been so firmly ingra…

Václav Havel: Democracy as Spiritual Discipline

By Peter Montgomery

…icians have a moral obligation to call their followers to be true to their best selves rather than pander to or inflame their followers’ worst instincts: Time and time again I have been persuaded that a huge potential of goodwill is slumbering within our society. It’s just that it’s incoherent, suppressed, confused, crippled and perplexed — as though it does not know what to rely on, where to begin, where or how to find meaningful outlets. In suc…

Marriage Equality: No More (Word) Games

By William Myatt

…nt of this link in paragraph 14, the implicit argument is that marriage is best defined as a one-man-one-woman institution. I appreciated the intellectual care that went into Smith’s analysis. Following the example of some of history’s best thinkers, he took an issue that most people considered straightforward, complicated it, and then redirected the discussion. Ultimately, though, I found his deconstruction unconvincing. Let me explain… Dr. Smith…

Women, Religion, and Film: Higher Ground Raises the Stakes

By Sarah Sentilles

…our husband, or you will die a terrible death. Higher Ground is one of the best representations of religiously sanctioned sexism I have ever seen in film. Corinne’s thinking, behavior, and clothing are disciplined throughout the film—by her parents, by her husband, by her minister, by the counselor, and by other women in the congregation who silence her and tell her the dress she wears is too revealing (never mind that it is a floor-length billowi…

Mitt Romney, Frontrunner: Deal With It

By Joanna Brooks

…s). He even managed to joke about Sarah Palin’s bus tour antics being “the best thing that could happen” to his candidacy. Right now, Mitt Romney’s greatest problem appears to be Republican Party itself. After opportunistically handing the reins to Tea Partiers and evangelical conservatives to capitalize on unbridled rage against the nation’s first African-American president, the GOP has now cultivated a base most interested in crusading against s…

Millennials Put Off By Rigid, Judgmental Religion Offered … More Orthodoxy

By Daniel Schultz

…rches that demand orthodoxy—another word for holiness—are the ones that do best. That’s even true! Conservative churches do fare better these days than liberal ones, though the sociologists tell me that’s mostly the result of their later adoption of birth control. The cultural trends are the cultural trends, even if they do take longer to catch up with some groups than others. It makes a certain surface amount of sense, then, that Shrum would argu…