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‘Biblical’ Disaster in Haiti: Pat Robertson and the Curse of Unyielding Ignorance

By Matt Recla

…lation of Haiti is somewhere around thirty percent. In Port-au-Prince that number jumps to almost forty percent. The majority of these churches are Pentecostal. These churches are overwhelmingly independent, indigenous Haitian entities, though some are linked to North American denominational Pentecostal churches. Haiti, along with Jamaica and Puerto Rico, is home to one of the fastest growing Pentecostal populations in the Caribbean. As I watch th…

Indonesia: As Volcano Erupts, a Spiritual Loss

By Mark Woodward

…’s Mount Merapi is still spewing clouds of ash into the sky, and the death toll from the eruptions that began two weeks ago has grown to 191, with more than 350,000 people displaced. Gunung Merapi (“The Mountain of Fire”) is the most active volcano in Indonesia and one of the most active in the world. Merapi is located approximately 30 kilometers north of Yogyakarta, a city of approximately 500,000. On clear days, views of the mountain dominate th…

The Theo-logic Behind Pat Robertson’s Offense

By Matt Recla

…ered Haiti impoverished for decades. Natural disaster places an unbearable toll on an already weakened infrastructure. Christians have noted this, but have placed the blame on economic or political sources rather than allowing a place for the impetus that Christianity gives to ideas of manifest destiny and global capitalism. Instead of putting a bandage over Pat Robertson’s social faux pas, though, we should allow the wound to remain exposed a whi…

Monks With Guns: Discovering Buddhist Violence

By Michael Jerryson

…g was the last thing on their minds. The constant fear and violence took a toll on them. Monks talked about the guns they had bought and now kept at their bedsides. Others spoke heatedly about the violent militant attacks on Buddhist civilians and monasteries. Although the cause of the violence is multilayered—owing much to corruption, drug trade, and corporatization—many monks also felt Islam was to blame. In their minds, the conflict was anchore…

Today’s Inauguration Was a Reconsecration of Sacred Space

By Peter Laarman

…ffering. The grief we feel on January 20 flows not just from Covid’s awful toll but also from our anguish over the obvious fragility of American democracy and our nation’s ever-worsening structural injustices—appalling inequities that are too often euphemized as “disparities.” I want to focus on suffering and the religious dimension. Just as soldiers once insisted that no one is an atheist in a foxhole, so too were there plenty of non-religious in…

When the Golden Rule is Used to Silence Dissent and Protect the Politically Powerful

By John Stoehr

…non of lies includes lies about the covid pandemic, culminating in a death toll now exceeding half a million. Their repertoire of lies includes lies about the election, culminating in the worst attack on our government since September 11, 2001. Their stockpile of lies includes The Big One repeated Sunday by three GOP senators and one GOP House leader to the detriment of millions of television viewers. How does a republic deal with parties that lie…

Is Change Possible? Shifting the Ex-Gay Question

By Lynne Gerber

…like Exodus is getting back to the objective they started it for—to be of service for people of faith who want to live differently.” Bussee himself says “Alan has said there will be proofs and amends. We’re still waiting and watching for those.” Justifying an Opposition to LGBT Civil Rights The first ex-gay ministries were founded in the early 1970s by conservative, homosexual Christians who wanted to live in accordance with Christian sexual ethi…

Not Peace, But Division? Evangelical Vaccine Refusers Divide Families

By Chrissy Stroop

…refusers represent a minority of white evangelicals, they have sufficient numbers and visibility to cause serious problems. The New York Times recently quoted an evangelical pastor who claims he’s aware of colleagues who’ve been forced out of their pulpits because of their support for public health measures, and prominent evangelical magazine Christianity Today similarly reports that many evangelical pastors are scared of taking a public stand on…

Honoring and Renewing Dr. King’s Other, More Challenging, Dream — 55 Years Later

By Peter Laarman

…a level: in the struggle to get ahead in a winner-take-all culture, in the toll that struggle takes in damaging personal relations and susceptibility to addictions, in the deference shown to “superiors” and the contempt directed toward people further down in the pecking order. For many others, the violence of the American caste system is only too visible in the form of militarized policing and racist mass incarceration; brutal housing and educatio…

Sometimes Dialogue is Not the Answer and Neutrality is a Trap: An Interview with the Authors of ‘The Neutrality Trap’

By Chrissy Stroop

…ime that you wrote the book? Bernie: The overturning of Roe, the continued toll that guns take on the most vulnerable in our society, the ever darkening cloud on our future that climate change presents—all seem to reinforce our central point, which is that without disruption, connection alone won’t deal with our problems. But without a strategic approach to disruption, which also requires connecting across our differences, we won’t achieve system…