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Court Rules Against Texas Education Employee Forced To Resign Over Forwarded Email

By Lauri Lebo

…il, demanded that Comer resign from her position. The issue? The email was about an upcoming talk by Barbara Forrest, a philosopher of science and one of the creationists’ most hated enemies. Forrest wrote, along with her co-author Paul R. Gross, Creationism’s Trojan Horse, a damning and carefully documented account of “intelligent design’s” creationist links. In the 2005 intelligent design trial of Kitzmiller v. Dover, Forrest was the defendants’…

Art(ful) History in Texas

By Lauri Lebo

…since last week the board voted to delay indefinitely the purchase of new science textbooks that include the changes McLeroy has lobbied for. Because new science textbooks are estimated to cost $350 million, the board opted to bridge the gap between the old and the new science standards with supplemental materials. The board will review and select the materials next spring. Using supplemental materials may be something of a creationist cloak and…

Introducing the Dr. Who Media Club

By James F. McGrath

…o-author of The Truth is Out There: Christian Faith and the Classics of TV Science Fiction; *Joseph Laycock: RD contributor and a doctoral candidate studying religion and society at Boston University. He is the author of Vampires Today: The Truth About Modern Vampires. And now, without further ado, James McGrath and I reflect on the first three episodes. — Gabriel McKee Gabriel McKee_____________ After over a year wandering in the wilderness of…

Texas Board of Education Wants to Change History

By Lauri Lebo

…for wanting to worship God in her own way as “making trouble” reveals much about what Marshall and his supporters really think about the principle of religious freedom. The irony, of course, is that these are the same men who argue forcefully that educators must do a better job at teaching this nation’s Christian heritage. “This is a guy talking about freedom of religion as part of the history of the United States,” said Dan Quinn of the Texas Fre…

RDBook: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World: An Interview with Michelle Goldberg

By Mandy Van Deven

…but you only briefly touched on other religions (Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism). Why didn’t they warrant as much attention? I’m not sure I agree. I write quite a bit about the alliance between conservative Muslims and Christians to fight women’s rights at the UN. I also deal with the connection between Islam and female circumcision. The chapter about India’s missing girls is set in the context of Hinduism and Sikhism. That said, the internati…

The Higher the Dome, The Closer to God: “Megachurches” Explores the Arid Architecture of America’s New Sanctuaries

By Anita Little

…e factions of people who are obsessed with it or people who are pissed off about it that I’ll never know about it. So when it comes to questions about reactions in the religious community, I don’t know those people. I don’t know if they’re talking about it. At the opening, I did speak to maybe a dozen people who were mostly just fascinated. I think people are mostly surprised and just very curious. The biggest surprise for those who are not megach…

How Religion Shaped American Jewish Masculinity

By Sarah Imhoff

…of an Octopus. It is, in fact, pretty much what it sounds like: a popular science book about octopus cognition, physiology, and behavior. I’m an avid scuba diver, and the octopus is one of my absolute favorite creatures. They’re smart, they’re expressive, and they will look right at you as they dig into a conch shell for lunch. But I also loved the book because it makes the reader think about how humans know what we know, how our senses work, and…

Why We Stay: What the History of Mormonism Reveals About the Origins of “Race”

By Max Mueller

…d race is about dynamic narratology. As I write in the book, race “is less about skin and more about stories—stories about how racial differences came to be in the past and how such racial differences can be overcome in the future” (34). 3. Relatedly, that the Book of Mormon isn’t worth studying. Race and the Making of the Mormon People contains the most sustained analysis of Mormonism’s foundational text of a history of race and religion publishe…

“Reason to Worry”: An Anti-Semitism Scholar Opens Up on Trump, Misogyny and the Future of Anti-Judaism

By Michael Schulson

…y no Jews. If we get too fixated on thinking that this discourse is always about about Jews, then we don’t understand why it’s so powerful in society. It has horrible effects on Jews. But it’s not in any way built out of a real Jew. A while ago, Chris Rock did a long interview with New York magazine. Rock started talking about how he would cover racism in the U.S. if he were a journalist. He said—I’m paraphrasing here—that when journalists want to…

God Dissolves into the Occupy Movement

By Nathan Schneider

…But I kind of think I’d be up for it. Peter, Elizabeth makes a good point about megachurch culture and market economics. But still, I wonder about a place to gather as a unifying political force—and I don’t mean this in a herd mentality sense. In any case, let’s talk about transcendence: does this movement need to transcend obvious religious frames? PL: Right. Obvious religious frames don’t apply, and it’s lazy to try to graft conventional religi…