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

By Daniel Wise

…ncerned with intuition, the therapeutic, and the flow of spiritual energy. More and more Americans are embracing metaphysical forms of spirituality as they move away from traditional religious affiliation. Maria originally responded to the haunting by attempting a house-cleansing derived from her training in Reiki. She lit candles, used hand motions to direct energy, and imagined the house filling with pure, cleansing light. She also consulted a f…

The Lady Vanishes: Trump’s Communications Team Tries to Topple a Monument

By Spencer Dew

…and / Glows world-wide welcome.” More eloquent than a pre-dawn tweetstorm, more memorable than the Orwellian coinages of “alt-fact” and “post-truth,” the poem is unshakably associated with the statue on the public imagination. (If Miller were really interested in originalism, he might have noted, as the Smithsonian did a few years back, that the lady’s original design had her wearing a veil, as an Egyptian peasant woman, and her intended function…

Are You There God? It’s Me, Donald: A President at Prayer

By Peter Laarman

…aham himself. He told me, “Donald, you pray better than I do, and I am the most famous Christian in the world.” He told me that last week in a great, great phone call. Oh, and Fred Douglass. I need to get his input, too. Just this morning I told them, the great African Americans who supported me completely, what an amazing job Fred is doing, being recognized more and more. They loved it. They love me. My speech was a the biggest success in the his…

Death Without Religion

By Gordon Haber

…a small number of Americans losing their lives at the hands of hasty harvesters; even a very small number would be too high. But I had a hard time summoning any outrage. In the end I learned much more from Kagan—ironically because his aims are in a way more modest. He wants to convince you of his physicalist stance; however, he doesn’t want to tell you how to reconcile with death. That part is up to you. So maybe it’s not a question of how to live…

Are You Rapture Ready?

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…this date predicted on a van parked in a shopping center parking lot near Columbia, South Carolina months ago, so I suppose I’m already behind in my preparations. I count myself among the scoffers of second coming date-setting since Jesus himself said we won’t know the date or the time of his return. Evans is prepared with his answer to me and others who laugh off their efforts: “Sadly, only eight people survived the flood in Noah’s time,” he sai…

What’s So Troubling About Funding a Playground? How Trinity Lutheran Undermines the First Amendment

By Elizabeth Reiner Platt

…ief revisiting here. A Missouri state program offered grants for a limited number of nonprofit schools and daycares to purchase rubber playground surfaces made from recycled tires. Prospective grantees were evaluated and selected based on a number of factors, including poverty level of the surrounding area and their willingness to generate media exposure for Missouri. In 2012, Trinity Lutheran, a Missouri Synod congregation, applied for the grant…

Global LGBT Recap: Nigeria Jails Gays, Russian Orthodox Spox Calls for Criminalization Referendum

By Peter Montgomery

…sation was in “possession of pamphlets and fliers with information that promotes homosexuality for distribution.” But High Court Judge Justice Priscilla Chigumba reportedly ruled this week that the operations of GALZ are above board. Chiguma reported “ruled that GALZ is not obliged to register in terms of the Private Voluntary Organisations Act…and is specifically exempted by the Act.” Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights’ Tonderai Bhatasara welcomed…

Holey Holey Holey: The Problem with a New Study Valuing Religion at $1.2 Trillion Per Year

By Michael Schulson

…lone pulled in more cash. Brian Grim said that, after they circulated this number among some colleagues, most thought it was way too low. In an interview with RD, Grim was blunt: “I think [this estimate] is wrong.” The second estimate—$1.2 trillion—is the one that has been appearing in headlines and press releases, and it’s the one the Grims argue is most accurate. To get this number, they took the first figure, $378 billion, and then added the es…

Does Record Number of Religious “Nones” Mean Decline of Religiosity?

By Elizabeth Drescher

…nimals,” “enjoying time with friends,” and “preparing or sharing food” as among the most “spiritually meaningful practices” in an inventory that also included the conventionally-measured practices of “attending worship,” “studying sacred texts,” and “praying.” Only prayer made it to the top of the list, coming in at number five behind what I’ve come to call the “Four F’s of Contemporary American Spirituality”: Family, Fido, Friends, and Food. This…

Will Iowa’s Abortion Ban Respect Religious Freedom?

By Christine Ryan

…g on data collected by the Abortion & Religion Project and first-hand testimony, we demonstrated the many ways that religious beliefs can motivate abortion. In their own words, individuals described the religious and spiritual reasoning behind their abortion decisions. Some consulted religious doctrine or faith leaders. For others, their abortions were motivated by religious obligations they feel bound by, such as the duties one owes to others, in…