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The Real Story Behind Rick Perry’s Secret Meetings with Pastors

By Sarah Posner

…in 2000. Kaylor wrote, “You were correct to connect the news about Perry’s phone call with Robison’s effort in 1980. In fact, the connection is much stronger.” Kaylor reported in June that although Robison denied that his group was supporting a particular candidate—in fact, the group was divided over who to support, as was the religious right leadership in 2008—the televangelist appears to be a prime motivator of Perry’s prayer rally scheduled for…

Godly Game or Godless Satire? Countering Biblical Ignorance with Heretical Humor

By Betsy Shirley

…the Old Testament because they’re long and boring…” Here pauses. “Granted, Numbers is like…” “I like Numbers, but anyway…” mumbles Caleb. “The real impetus for the game,” Thomas resumes, “is to get people to engage in Scripture and read stories they’ve never read before. When a concubine is cut up into twelve pieces, that imagery is really offensive. But a lot of people didn’t even know that story existed in the Bible.” I suspect they’re right; re…

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

By Daniel Wise

…ouse. She reported that, whenever she tried to speak to this friend on the phone in the house about the haunting, the phone connection would be interrupted. As a busy woman with two kids, Maria doesn’t always have a lot of time to devote to spirituality, but when she does, she often relies on intuition. In the case of the haunting, she reports that her intuition pointed her toward the conclusion that it’s the land on which the house was built that…

Where Polls and Surveys Fall Short: A Conversation with Robert Wuthnow on “Inventing American Religion”

By Andrew Aghapour

…s pretty much it. Evangelical leaders themselves didn’t believe the Gallup numbers were right, and [they thought that] the best way to combat those Gallup numbers was to ask Gallup to do another survey. And so in 1978, Christianity Today, a leading periodical for evangelicals, paid Gallup to do a big survey and in addition to just asking the born-again question, they asked questions about belief in the Bible, belief in Jesus, and intent on convert…

Mormon Tabernacle Choir Will Usher In the Trump Era

By Benjamin E. Park

…hite evangelicals; the Utah College Exit Poll, however, with a much higher number of Mormon participants, put the number closer to 45 percent. Both figures are well below previous Mormon voting percentages for the Republican candidates, but they indicate that at least half of Latter-day Saints were willing to stomach Trump’s apparent moral deficiencies. This turn of events has historical precedent. Though the LDS Church’s political affiliation was…

Even After an Obama Victory Reports of the Death of the Religious Right are Greatly Exaggerated

By Bill Berkowitz

…folk to meet with Obama administration officials and to work together on a number of policy issues including Obama’s plan for revitalized faith-based initiatives, global warming, combatting AIDS in Africa and poverty at home and abroad. “Look for the stock of religious conservative leaders such as Rick Warren, Stephen Mansfield, author of The Faith of Obama, and Cameron Strang, publisher of Relevant, a hipster Christian magazine that puffed Obama,…

From Shofars to Hammers: The Spiritual Warriors of MAGA are ‘ReAwakening’ to Political Violence

By Mark Clatterbuck

…16 US cities, drawing sold-out crowds at every stop, with regularly priced tickets ranging between $250 and $500. It is arguably the dominant brand of today’s Republican Party. For good reason, a growing number of expert observers have begun sounding the alarm. I suggest it’s time we hit the panic button. The rally featured plenty of repugnant elements—from the relentless attacks on transgender youth consistent with fascist scapegoating, to the st…

Leper Messiah: A Jesus Freak’s Search for the Meaning of Bowie—A Critical Novella

By Mark Dery

…n Mick Rock, Blood and Glitter (London, UK: Vision On Publishing, 2001), unnumbered page. [2] Marc Spitz, Bowie: A Biography (New York: Crown, 2009), p. 214. [3] Quoted in Mick Rock, Blood and Glitter (London, UK: Vision On Publishing, 2001), unnumbered page. [4] Ellen Degeneres: Search YouTube. As of this writing, an excerpt from the episode in question could be found here. “Totally credible plastic rock star”: Quoted in the booklet accompanying…

Catholic Voters No Longer Beholden to Bishops and Abortion

By Mary E. Hunt

…in which abortions are necessary, the context that needs to change if the number of abortions is to be reduced. This larger context constitutes “gravely moral reasons” why a Catholic could, some might say should, vote for Obama over McCain despite their respective positions on abortion. Theologians and other Catholic scholars have led the way on this approach. Pro-choice Catholic scholars have long argued that one can favor legal abortion from a…

The Harlot Shall Be Burned with Fire: Biblical Literalism in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

By Sarah Sentilles

…ty, and Mass Media” students to watch one hour of television, to count the number of dead bodies they saw, and to keep track of who those bodies belonged to. On television, the dead bodies were women’s; on the evening news, they were the bodies of people from other countries, and usually they weren’t white. Judith Butler argues in Precarious Life that whose dead bodies we are allowed to see, and whose remain hidden, tell us something about which l…