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A Religious History of American Neuroscience

By Leigh Eric Schmidt

…heme since the Enlightenment. 2) The second pivot point is recognizing the way that the nation’s religious history shapes the way the mind has been and continues to be imagined, even in many of the study designs on meditation that emerge among contemporary neuroscientists. As novel as it may sound to be monitoring the brainwaves of Tibetan Buddhist monks in university laboratories, it is certainly not the first time that American psychologists hav…

Was Blind But Now I See: The Debut of a New Anti-Abortion Strategy

By Kellee Terrell

…ion worker,” and “save them from the hell called Planned Parenthood.” In a way, it was the same sort of shift that crisis pregnancy centers had pioneered, presenting themselves as the kinder, gentler face of pro-life activism, eager to help women avoid the harmful choice of abortion. Similarly, the panel psychologized the issue, suggesting that abortion workers must be suffering in some way that leads them to work in the industry—that they come fr…

Why Even Progressive Christianity Must Own Its Complicity in Anti-LGBT Violence

By Layton E. Williams

…nt rainbow flag over the front doors of our sanctuary, which look out onto Chicago’s famous Magnificent Mile. My church has a long history of engagement in social justice and has been a welcoming space for LGBT people for years. But as the rainbow flag flapped in the wind above the prayer service, several church members present remarked that such a public statement of solidarity and welcome had never happened before—and wouldn’t have. Something ha…

The Role of Faith in the Lives of Abortion Providers

By Sarah Posner

…ding recently organizing an event, “Contraception Is Not Controversial” in Chicago with Democratic Representatives Mike Quigley and Jan Schakowsky. The doctor said she is worried about the increasing number of restrictions on abortion states are implementing. (To get a sense how women’s access to abortion is shrinking across the country, take a look at this map assembled by the Guttmacher Institute.) Twenty-four hour waiting periods, for example,…

Gay, Christian, Pagan, Artist: How Matt Morris Defies the Borders of Spiritual Identity

By Jesse James DeConto

…ney is my journey and yours is yours. For me, closing the blog and shying away from a lot of interaction online was a way to keep that fire from raging. You spent a couple of months this year leading worship music at St. Andrew’s All Saints Episcopal Church in Portland and you’re playing at the Wild Goose Festival. What has made you feel comfortable taking on these public roles at this point? I don’t really feel like I’m stepping forward as a publ…

Pastor of Kentucky Church Severed From Baptists Over LGBT Inclusion: Not Activism, Just Honesty

By Mike Greer

…see itself as an activist church on this issue. I think Crescent Hill sees itself as Crescent Hill and this is wholly consistent with the DNA of Crescent Hill that’s been in place since at least 1926 when Southern Baptist Seminary moved from Broadway downtown to the hill on which it is currently situated. Crescent Hill was formed in 1908. I feel confident in saying that this is who we are and this is pretty much who we always have been. It doesn’…

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

By Brook Wilensky-Lanford

…on the phone a couple weeks after the event in Durham, he told me, In some ways what I do is basic pastoring. It’s, you give people an idea, you let them respond to it, you give them another idea….it’s basic spiritual direction. Like the itinerant rabbi, the guru—not to say that I’m a guru—but there’s a long tradition [of that kind of work]. But so many people right now are rethinking everything…saying wait, is this it? They’ve been handed a way o…

My Lowest Point

By Amina Wadud

…ace. We’d made plans to meet up in case we got separated and had exchanged phone numbers. In the middle of the tawaf, the call to prayer came. The guards stopped the tawaf. Some people complied and started to form lines. I found a spot between two women, each with their husbands, and sat down on the line. This seemed an ideal spot until a woman in black niqab squeezed in on my left just as we started the prayer. Okay then. Before we had completed…

When Blasphemy Was a Riot (But Didn’t Cause One)

By Sophie Gherardi

…he Untouchables), which came out almost a year ago and sold twenty million tickets in France (and nearly as many abroad). Intouchables is a funny and moving comedy, but as politically correct a story as you’ll find: a black young man bordering on delinquency is hired by a tetraplegic wealthy man to be his assistant-nurse-chauffeur. They have a ball together doing crazy—and sometimes nasty—things, and save each other from an apparently inexorable f…

Pope Tweeted into Retirement

By Rachel Wagner

…g, enabling the sharing of God’s truths with many in an easy and effective way. Interactivity was still relatively limited, and our media mimicked our religion: much of it was still top-down, though change hung in the air. But it’s Benedict who has seen unprecedented change in communications technology—enough to make anyone wish for retirement. He’s observed the massive development of YouTube and Google, the ubiquity of smart phones and mobile dev…