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Marriage Equality Coming To Taiwan In Spite of Religious Objectors?; Anti-Gay Ruling Sought By Indonesian Islamists Threatens Women & Poor Couples; LDS Church Launches New ‘Mormon and Gay’ Site; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…he marginalized, people who live in remote places in the margins of public service,” she said. Mormon Church: New policy seeks to put friendlier face on church’s anti-gay doctrine The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has published a new website called Mormon and Gay, which is meant to put a softer face on the church’s stance toward LGBT people, which has been rendered harshly by recent policy declaring same-sex couples apostate. From Ma…

Behind the Inclusive-Sounding Ads of this $100 Million PR-Blitz-for-Jesus it’s the Same Old Conservative Christian Fantasy

By Chrissy Stroop

…tion, and I’m pretty sure that this tech-savvy, culturally aware, and #VeryOnline generation is not going to be ‘won back to Christ’ by, for example, a heavy-handed quasi-parable about Jesus inviting everyone to his table and being “heartbroken” that some refuse his invitation, “because he wanted everyone to be filled—not with food and wine, but with compassion.” On a superficial level, the “He Gets Us” spots have high production value, but that’s…

Come Let Us Reason Together: A Response to Critics of Evangelical/Progressive Initiative

By Robert P. Jones

…s good faith to those with whom one disagrees. For example, whatever one’s reservations might be about whether the “Come Let Us Reason Together Governing Agenda” goes far enough, it is indisputable that it marks movement in key policy areas. It is the first time that mainstream evangelicals have publicly supported policies on abortion that have no bans or restrictions and that include support for prevention of unintended pregnancy, including compr…

Evangelicals Struggle With the Role of Churches in Society

By Omri Elisha

…rns for the welfare of society, many conservative evangelicals harbor deep reservations about supporting any programs that seem to deprioritize evangelism or run the risk of becoming too liberal or too secular. Socially engaged evangelicals counteract those concerns by insisting that faith-based activism can ideally be a vehicle for greater evangelism, not a distraction from it. But they often face strong ideological resistance and logistical cons…

What the Hail: Satanists Got Busy in 2018

By Joseph Laycock

…ft soon after, citing concerns about transparency within the organization, reservations about working with Marc Randazza, and a lack of leadership roles for minorities. The chapter formed its own group called The Satanic Collective. Although the chapters defected for different reasons, Jezebel ran a headline describing TST as “engulfed in a civil war.” Ahead of this story, Jex Blackmore published an essay explaining her reasons for leaving, while…

Do Atheists Belong in the Interfaith Movement?

By Chris Stedman

…e interfaith movement. Despite Galef and Speckhardt’s serious concerns and reservations, they have been actively involved in intentionally interfaith efforts, and I suspect their participation has informed their conclusions about the idea. However, those speaking out against atheist involvement in the interfaith movement are, at the moment, a bit more numerous (just a couple of examples, with several others to follow). As far as I can tell based o…

The Story of a Post-Holocaust Group Seeking Revenge Against Nazis is Part of the Story of Israel Itself

By Shane Burley

…ssover, however, beheading Jews and setting buildings on fire, the rabbi’s reservations are dispelled. The Golem had been necessary. This particular Golem story encapsulates the fear at the heart of Ashkenazi history: your neighbors could turn on you at any moment, and we might need to become monsters to save ourselves. The 1981 pulp novel The Tribe mobilizes this myth, telling the story of a tight group of Orthodox men who deploy a Golem to survi…

When the ‘Biblical View’ for Evangelicals Was That Life Begins at Birth

By Jonathan Dudley

…the founders of the evangelical Right to neutralize previous, Bible-based reservations about Catholic pro-life activism. By 1980, Jerry Falwell was off to the races. “The Bible clearly states that life begins at conception,” he declared in his book Listen America! Abortion “is murder according to the Word of God.” Falwell’s major reference for this claim was Psalm 139:13, where the author writes that God “knit me together in my mother’s womb.” Mo…

America, Religious Values, and the Death Penalty; Or, If it Was Good Enough for Jesus and Socrates…

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…h potential juror how they felt about the death penalty; any who expressed reservations were excused, even though only five of them had said that they would under no circumstances consider the penalty. The majority of US Supreme Court justices concluded that “the State of Illinois has stacked the deck against the petitioner,” and that in so doing it had violated the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee that US citizens cannot be deprived of life, liberty,…

The Sacred and the Dead: Three Ways to American Beauty

By Aaron K. Kerr

…aves by way of hierarchy. The U.S. government splicing up Native land into reservations: “Plus the Great Chief in Washington promises your tribe $1 million.” The losers, criminals, and out-casts have learned to survive by imitating the powers that be. Duplicity, seduction, and addiction are the American reality. “Come on boys and gamble….I’ll take your money home.” In his lyrics, Hunter alerts us, however, to the danger. Like the ancient Greek cho…