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What Can a Real Life Haunting Tell Us About American Religion? [Updated]

By Daniel Wise

…earning my PhD, I was sometimes asked what ghost-hunting had to do with religious studies. In fact, Americans’ interactions with ghosts often reveal their personal spiritualities and religious worldviews—especially when those worldviews don’t fit neatly into traditional religious boxes. A haunting is like a canvas on which people paint their religious worldviews using the unique tools their culture provides them. I’m not the first to suggest a cul…

Yes, It Can Be Hard to Be an Atheist in America; Now We Have the Data

By Chrissy Stroop

…to a new report from American Atheists* called Reality Check: Being Nonreligious in America, those living in “very religious” communities reported substantially more discrimination in employment, education, and other services than those living in “not at all religious” communities. Visual from “Reality Check: Being Nonreligious in America,” courtesy of American Atheists. The Secular Survey, from which the report was drawn, includes data from 33,8…

The Lady Vanishes: Trump’s Communications Team Tries to Topple a Monument

By Spencer Dew

…e calls with Mexico and Australia, is all too apparent as a dominant and guiding focus) or a problem with those picked to actually “communicate” on behalf of the White House (from a Press Secretary who hid “among” bushes and banned cameras from press conferences to a Director of Communications who, in the early and yet also late days of his short-lived job accused one upper administration official of psychological pathology and attributed to anoth…

Are You There God? It’s Me, Donald: A President at Prayer

By Peter Laarman

…r (“pray for his ratings”), bragged about his material success while maintaining that it’s less important than “spiritual success,” spoke of combating worldwide religious extremism “viciously, if we have to” (“it won’t be pretty for a while”), defended his immigrant ban by declaring “we will not allow a beachhead of intolerance to spread in our nation,” and even managed to associate the name of Thomas Jefferson with his pledge to “totally destroy”…

Should NASA Have Given $1.1 Million to a Theology Institute?

By Michael Schulson

…ependent institution “rooted in Christian theology.” The grant supports an initiative to study “the societal implications of astrobiology.” Surprisingly, it took more than a year for anyone to complain. The potential issue here is obvious: NASA is a government agency. The Center of Theological Inquiry is, well, a center of theological inquiry—an institution that seemingly has a religious, and specifically Christian, orientation. At least in theory…

How To Talk To “Nones” and Influence People: Rob Bell’s Transrational Experience

By Brook Wilensky-Lanford

…t your life, decide if it’s what you want, then devote all your energy to living the best life you can. Don’t stop yourself from doing something you want to do. Just do it. Even if that thing is being an assistant regional manager of an insurance company—he actually says this—be the best assistant regional manager of an insurance company you can be. Work on something called your “craft.” (Even the insurance agent has a craft.) Also, pay attention…

Is There Hope for a Truly Progressive Evangelicalism? An Interview with Deborah Jian Lee

By Eric C. Miller

…for Rescuing Jesus: How People of Color, Women & Queer Christians Are Reclaiming Evangelicalism. So far, Lee has been approached by non-Christians, newly eager to learn more about the progressive evangelical movement, by young readers like the queer Christian who found a path to acceptance by reading the book with his mother, and by other women of color, who have thanked her for addressing the intersecting oppressions those with marginalized ident…

Religious Hostility to Gay Nigerians; The Pope’s Visit To Africa; Ireland’s Religious Schools Can’t Discriminate Against Gays; Orthodox Church in Georgia Leads Anti-Gay Forces; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…repared, as a nation, for real social change. Ana described Patriarch Ilia II as one of the most outspoken opponents of LGBT rights in the country, even though he has generally been a supporter of western ties and integration with Europe. Before the 2013 attacks, Ana writes, there seemed to be “a slow but steady national shift in favor of progressive values” and greater tolerance toward the LGBT community. But just beneath the surface, the ever-pr…

The Problem with Pew’s Science & Religion Poll

By Andrew Aghapour and Michael Schulson

…s, you have to ask good questions. “Generally, do you think science and religion are often in conflict?” is not a very helpful question. It’s vague from start to finish. Religion could refer to the beliefs and practices of evangelical Protestants, Jesuits, secular Jews, or Theravada Buddhists—or even some imagined mashup of all global faiths. Science is fuzzy, too. It refers to a wide range of disciplines (e.g. astronomy, botany, psychiatry) and o…

Lying About Our Religion, And Other Problems With Polling

By Michael Schulson

Robert Wuthnow isn’t going to say it, so I will: a lot of religion polling is bullshit. This isn’t just an academic squabble. Polling firms like Pew and Gallup offer the principal lens through which journalists, pundits, religious leaders, and politicians observe the spiritual state of the union. Polls and surveys shape debates about policy and public morality. They help define key groups—evangelicals, for example, or the nones—that crop up again…