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Are Atheists Taking 1st Amendment Suits Too Far?

By Gordon Haber

…n,” which allows clergy to forego paying taxes on income used for housing. Last year the FFRF sued the IRS, claiming that the exemption privileges clergy over laypersons and is thus unconstitutional. The exemption was created to help smaller churches that can’t afford to build housing for clergy. But it also helps wealthy pastors line their own pockets. For example, between 1993 and 1995,Saddleback Church paid Rick Warren a housing allowance of ar…

Did the Pope Embrace the Prosperity Gospel?

By Sarah Posner

…the work that He has begun,” said Francis. The Trinity Foundation, the Dallas, Texas-based Christian watchdog group that monitors and investigates televangelism fraud, has questions, asking why the Pope would meet with religious leaders “who engage in the same kind of excesses he’s been preaching against.” In a statement, the Trinity Foundation writes: At a meeting in June, the pope greeted Kenneth Copeland of Kenneth Copeland Ministries and Jame…

Trump is Helping the Economy… The Apocalypse Economy

By Jonathan Root

…it the most attended non-Disney theme park in America. The bonanza didn’t last. In 1987, news leaked that Bakker had had a one-time sexual encounter with a 21-year-old in a Clearwater hotel room, and that he had paid her $265,000 in hush money. Then in December 1988, a federal grand jury indicted Bakker on twenty-four counts of fraud and conspiracy, based on a dishonest scheme he had used to raise capital for Heritage USA. He was found guilty of…

Catholic Church Ordained Women Before, Can Do it Again

By Phyllis Zagano

…e trajectory of deacon-priest-bishop is relatively recent—only about 700 or 800 years in the long history of the Church. In fact, the earlier understanding is that the deacon would become a bishop! I sometimes wonder if the naysayers are more afraid of women bishops than of women priests. But, in modern times, we have reestablished the tradition of a diaconate lived permanently. All priests are also ordained deacons, and in the most formal of litu…

Policing Academic Freedom: A Book, a Controversy, and the Ominous Aftermath

By Michael Jerryson

…liberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class of citizens.” The school teacher was Mr. Batra, a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right-wing Hindu nationalist organization. As early as 2001, Mr. Batra has engaged in political and legal measures to affect educational curriculum through his organization Shiksha Bachao Aandolan Samiti (Movement to Save Education). For Mr. Batra, Doniger’s malicious a…

US Archbishop and Vatican-Appointed “Overseer” Attends Annual Meeting of Women Religious

By Emily Baxter

…sessment of American nuns. The Vatican came down hard on American sisters last year, admonishing them for doing too much “social justice” work, disagreeing with Church teaching on gay people, and propagating “radical feminist themes.” Not surprisingly, this assessment hung over much of the discussions and speeches at the LCWR assembly. The goings on at the assembly shed light on the current fraught relationship between two influential groups in A…

My God, David Brooks

By John Modern

…lves spiritual, or religious, or both, or neither; when they encounter any number of mundane moments when questions of religion press upon them. But what if our choices vis-à-vis religion have some other complicated and fraught economy beyond that of the psychic? Might such choices never be choices to begin with, despite the fact that the a priori status of that choice has gained such philosophical and political currency over the last few hundred…

Thoreau’s Ferocious Critique of Philanthropy Does Not Make Him “Selfish”

By Alda Balthrop-Lewis

…abwe, just as overlooked and beleaguered… Big companies have always sought cheaper labor, moving from North to South in the United States, looking for the hungriest, the most desperate, the least organized, the most exploitable. Press coverage of conditions in Apple’s factories in China has been anything but glowing. Yet when Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, says he’ll give his personal wealth to charities of his choice (many of them in Silicon Valley), he…

The Fire This Time

By Anthea Butler

…g and Philando Castile, and about the five policemen shot and killed in Dallas. I know. You want me to say something profound, the hard thing. You want me to say something passionate, something to rally you, something to make you feel like there is hope, and that we’re going to change. But that’s not what this piece is about. You see, I’m done believing. I’m done believing that writing words about this shit is going to make it better. I’m done bel…

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…