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Give Me That Old-Time Ex-Gay Snake Oil

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

After losing prominent “ex-gay” mouthpieces to apology (Alan Chambers), scandal (George Rekers) or enlightenment (John Paulk), the religious right is scrambling for a new face to sell its snake oil. Say hello to David Kyle Foster, author of a pair of books about leaving homosexuality, whose new article over at the Christian Post rehashes all the lies the right-wing loves to spout about lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people. Lest you th…

Moses on Facebook, Christian Pro Soccer, Televangelist Breakfast Cereal, Child Preachers

By Michael J. Altman

…t to living in the world’s tallest skyscraper, Dubai’s Burj Khalifa. Your Ramadan fast lasts two minutes longer than folks on the ground. Got a question about Islam? Dial 1-877-WHY-ISLAM. The Charlotte Eagles, a Christian pro soccer club, bring their faith to the pitch. For some Muslim youth, scouting and Islam are a perfect match. Meanwhile, organizers of the World Youth Day Catholic festival in Madrid, Spain set up 200 outdoor confessionals for…

What Caused the Catholic Church Child Sexual Abuse Crisis? Blame the Sixties.

By Joanna Brooks

…thorized by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, investigated a number of potential factors contributing to a sharp peak of reported and documented abuse cases in the 1960s and 1970s, including social trends among ordination cohorts, changes in seminary curriculum, and psychological pathologies and social behaviors of abusive priests. Its conclusion? The sixties—social movements and sex, drugs, and rock and roll—are to blame. Study au…

Tucson, Like All Tragedy, is for Adults

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…hat “Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it” (Mark 10:15 and Luke 18:17, though Matthew 19:14 seems a bit more ambivalent about this claim). By contrast, Paul recalls that “when I was a child I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I put away childish things” (I Corinthians 13:11). Which is it then? Is the kingdom of God reserved for the c…

Can Anti-Mormon Prejudice be Compared to Anti-Black Racism?

By Joanna Brooks

…dent. It’s just an awfully simplistic way to gauge discrimination. Today, Jana Riess at Religion News Service—an exemplary voice in the world of Mormonism—explained why it is misleading to compare anti-black racism with anti-Mormon prejudice. Mild forms of social discrimination against Mormons are real, Riess wrote. But she offered several reasons why the experience of Mormons differs significantly from that of African Americans, including, as she…

Dragged Through the Mud: This Little Church-Backed Support Group for LGBTQ Teens Suffered Bomb Threats, Smears and the Cancellation of its Drag Show

By Chrissy Stroop

…le of the prophet Elijah who, according to the Bible, had the prophets of Baal slaughtered after defeating them in a contest of divine power. Farrington then made the dominionist assertion, “I must take responsibility as a Christian for the territory that I’m in, for that atmosphere that exists in it.” Dominionist charismatic evangelicals like Farrington believe that demons and angels literally fight for control over earthly territory, and that Ch…

‘Culting’: From Waco to Fundamentalist Mormons

By Catherine Wessinger

…which the public accepts what might actually be excessive action or force against these communities. The word “cult” originally referred simply to an organized system of worship; it is still used in that descriptive manner by scholars (especially in the study of the ancient world). Since the 1970s, the word “cult” has been used in popular discourse as a pejorative term for religions people fear, or hate, or do not want to recognize as a “real rel…

Love the Scholarship But Hate the Scholar’s Sin?: ‘Himpathy’ for an Academic Pedophile Enables a Culture of Abuse

By Stephen Young

…male perpetrators of sexual violence.” This tendency stems “largely from capacities and qualities of which we’re rarely critical: such as sympathy, empathy, trust in one’s friends … their naïve deployment will tend to further privilege those already unjustly privileged over others.” Himpathy is powerful. It performs a double social magic: erasing the voices of those who suffer at the hands of men while also reinforcing the power of men. We call t…

For Unto (Some of) Us a Child is Born: Handel’s Messiah and the Voice of Empire Rising

By Peter Laarman

…in the work of Handel and Jennens. Take, for example, this verse in the Isaac Watts hymn “Jesus Shall Reign,” composed during this same period: From north to south the princes meet, to pay their homage at His feet; While western empires own their Lord, and savage tribes attend His word. Those “savage tribes” would attend, all right, but not without imperial coercion. If you call yourself a Christian, none of this Advent bad news need spoil your C…

At the UN, Conservative Christian Agenda Cloaked in Human Rights Language

By Austin Dacey

…the Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted 25 years ago (and still awaiting ratification by Somalia, South Sudan, and the United States of America). In the spacious Room XXIII of the Palais des Nations, home of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, six pre-adolescent children were declaiming a text that sounded very human-rights-ish, with articles—one for each youth—on protecting, respecting, and establishing a number of thing…