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Picasso’s Sacred Monster Eats Chicago: A Mystery Solved?

By Jeremy Biles

…initive interpretation. Multiply ambiguous, it is a strange concoction of any number of animal and human forms, as well as a sphinx; itself a hybrid monster. Moreover, the Chicago Picasso intimates both the Egyptian and Greek sphinxes—an amalgam of cultural styles. An ambiguous, almost inscrutable object, it is an enigmatic icon and the icon of an enigma; its very presence confronts the populace with a riddle. The riddle is not simply what the Chi…

Ex-Gay Conversion Therapy: Choosing Religion Over Sex

By Lynne Gerber

…t in a library in a small midwestern town when I was researching my forthcoming book on ex-gay ministries and Christian weight loss programs. Thoughtful and honest, he told me about his 20-year experience in a fundamentalist church and the affair he had with another man the whole time. Frustrated with the church’s theological narrow-mindedness and the many contradictions of the relationship, he broke off from both to join an evangelical church wit…

Do iPads Cause Religious Experiences?

By Andrew Aghapour

…ndomly, depending on the history of the city. Burkhard Bilger, in a recent New Yorker profile of neuroscientist David Eagleman, describes this transition in our understanding of how the brain keeps time. During the mid-nineteenth century, the prevailing theory was that there was a single, integrated time-keeper somewhere in the brain—the equivalent of a neurological stop watch. More recent studies, however, suggest a hodgepodge of overlapping syst…

55% of Utah Mormons Believe LGBT People can “Change”

By Joanna Brooks

…nsure. Which confirms what those of us who live within the culture know: many, many LDS people live in a parallel universe when it comes to the reality of LGBT experience. Just a few weeks ago, I was visiting with a friend who has a gay adult child. We discussed the nuances of the recent events surrounding Elder Boyd K. Packer’s abrasive and controversial October conference talk which asserted that God would never have people be born with “tendenc…

And What of the Non-Jewish Jews?

By Shaul Magid

…. In a world where very recently being “Jewish” was a liability and anti-semitism was palpable, the number of non-Jews today who identify as Jewish seems historically distinctive. We could, perhaps, point to the so-called “fearers of heaven,” an undocumented community of Hellenes in late antiquity who lived in large Jewish population centers, apparently lived partially as Jews, and had some status in the Jewish community. But today’s non-Jewish Je…

A Debate Rages in India Over Conversion, Secularism, and “Spiritual Violence”

By Murali Balaji

…sn’t necessarily a left-right proposition. Hindu nationalist parties often mimic the socialist rhetoric of India’s left-of-center political establishment, while in states such as Karnataka, Kerala, West Bengal, and Tamil Nadu, political alliances between Marxists and religious minority parties (including ones funded by conservative Christian U.S. groups) are quite common. Even the BJP recently entered into a power-sharing alliance with a Muslim pa…

Not a ‘Weenie-A** Lodge’: James Ray Trial Begins

By Johnny P. Flynn

…nding that the sweat lodge at Angel Resort is a violation of the treaty of 1868. The treaty states in part that: “if bad men among the whites or other people subject to the authority of the United States shall commit any wrong upon the person or the property of the Indians, the United States will (…) proceed at once to cause the offender to be arrested and punished according to the laws of the United States.”…

Yet Another Survey Shows ‘Nones’ Growth at Record Levels

By Elizabeth Drescher

…f Duke and UC-Berkeley researchers highlights the continuing growth in the number of Americans who indicate no religious affiliation, with a full 20% now answering “none” when asked “What is your religious preference?” Michael Hout and Claude S. Fisher of UCB and Mark A. Chaves of Duke drew on data from the most recent General Social Survey (GSS), which has tracked religious preference since 1972, when a mere 5% of Americans self-identified as rel…

Sovereign Grace Sexual Abuse Lawsuit Just Got More Complicated

By T.F. Charlton

…in the case of “civil litigation against a Christian ministry or leader…no ministry or minister [would be] safe from destruction at any time” (T4G). The TGC statement suggests that “high profile Christians are sometimes targeted” with such allegations simply “because they are well known” and that there is “much gain…for those who hate the gospel when Christian leaders are unfairly attacked and diminished.” In my first report for RD, I expressed s…

How the Politics of the 1890s Explain the GOP’s Health Care Woes

By Patricia Miller

…ning of a period of Republican ascendency and activist government. Sound familiar? As As Mark Schmitt notes in Vox: Long before Donald Trump came along, the Republican Party ran four election campaigns — 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016 — on the promise to rid the country of the hated and oppressive Affordable Care Act … In three of those four elections, they captured another arm of government, all on the promise of ACA repeal: the House in 2010, the Se…