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Normalization is Control: Telling Stories to Survive

By Mariam Durrani

…and others, aren’t being highlighted as wrong, as unconstitutional, as racist. Instead, we hear the normalization of these racist policies. Some have described this as a form of obedience testing, to see just how far he can go before more people protest. I’m not sure what’s going to happen, but I wonder if we need to adopt Hoodfar’s strategy and write; not only as survival strategy, but also to make sure these stories don’t disappear. That we cont…

A Resurgence of “Ex-Gay Therapy” Under Trump/Pence? ABC News Report Offers a Platform to Hate Group Rep. Peter Sprigg

By Sunnivie Brydum

…and ability to care for others,” he added. Charles, now in his mid-30s, is still gay, still trans, and still an active member of the LGBTQ community, proving that efforts to change his sexual orientation and gender identity were wholly ineffective. This experience is not unique, as I have learned in the course of reporting on survivors of conversion therapy since 2009. Beginning at age 14, Ryan Kendall spent nearly two years under the care of Dr….

Prosperity Gospel Is Not the Only Problem with Joel Osteen’s Harvey Response

By Brie Loskota and Peter Gudaitis

…housands of Houstonians were seeking shelter from Hurricane Harvey. “Joel Osteen” started to trend on Twitter with comments about the hypocrisy of the prominent Prosperity Gospel preacher, who tweeted out that he and his wife were praying for Houston, while appearing not to do anything to address the great needs of his neighbors. Houston’s Joel Osteen has a net worth over $50m and a church that holds 16,800 but this is all he’s offering. pic.twi…

The Burning Houses of Worship We Missed

By Gordon Haber

…shows “a smooth patch of earth.” There’s a less radical but nevertheless disturbing story about China’s Kargilik Mosque. According to Radio Free Asia, the Chinese authorities stripped the 16th century building of its Islamic imagery and festooned it instead with banners proclaiming, “Love the Party, Love the Country.” The destruction and desecration of the mosques is part of a larger Chinese governmental effort to expunge Islam from China. It’s di…

New Report on (White) Christian Nationalism and the J6 Insurrection Shows Just ‘How Dire the Threat is’

By Chrissy Stroop

…lized groups as well as the spiritual impoverishment of religion; and We must stand up to and speak out against Christian nationalism, especially when it inspires acts of violence and intimidation—including vandalism, bomb threats, arson, hate crimes, and attacks on houses of worship—against religious communities at home and abroad. The statement has garnered over 24,000 individual open signers from more than six dozen denominations, and the BJC’s…

Rep. Cleaver’s ‘Awoman’ Prayer Enrages Christian Nationalists Who Taste Their Own Medicine and Still Miss the Point

By Andrew L. Seidel

…ended to be inclusive with this prayer, but he did just what his name suggests, just what the Founders feared, and just what our Constitution is meant to prevent—he divided the country along religious lines. Prayer at legislative sessions, which could easily be done by the truly pious legislators without a government microphone and resources, divides, cleaves, and sunders citizens along religious lines while pretending to unite us all. Any politic…

What Coverage of a Fatal Orthodox Baptism Reveals About Western Media

By Katherine Kelaidis

…Baptism by affusion (that’s the sprinkling of water that you will see in most Western churches, both Catholic and Protestant) initially emerged as a concession, probably in the 2nd century, but ultimately became the standard practice of the Western church by the 10th century. That being said, many Protestant traditions, particularly those who rejected the baptism of infants, eventually returned to full-immersion baptism. It’s the medieval, pre-Ref…

The Radical Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Left’s Challenge Today

By Peter Laarman

…eems to be more or less okay with dropping $6.4 trillion—and killing at least 800,000 people—in an ineffective and counterproductive “war on terror.” When will we understand that defunding the police and defunding the Pentagon reflect one and the same struggle?) Finally, given how the practice of radical nonviolence implies a willingness to sacrifice, how much are you personally willing to sacrifice for the achievement of the long-awaited radical…

Why #FreeBritney is an #Exvangelical Cause

By R.L. Stollar

…tist and spent her childhood performing in Baptist choirs. For her very first stage performance, when she was five years old, she sang “What Child Is This” at her kindergarten graduation. Spears was actually a standard-bearer for evangelicalism, especially evangelical purity culture, about which numerous articles have been written. Along with other young, evangelical women pop stars like Jessica Simpson and Mandy Moore, Spears made purity a part o…

Thoreau’s Ferocious Critique of Philanthropy Does Not Make Him “Selfish”

By Alda Balthrop-Lewis

…dividualism is our national religion and he is one of its loudest—or at least most famous—defenders. But Schulz’s reading of the man’s writing is facile. Where Thoreau writes—responding to the townsmen’s critique of his selfishness—“I confess that I have hitherto indulged very little in philanthropic enterprises,” Schulz quotes it as evidence that “this thoroughgoing misanthrope did not care to help other people.” But her interpretation is too qui…