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The ‘Fake Christian’ Deflection and Contrarian Concern Trolling: How Not to Write about Evangelical Authoritarianism

By Chrissy Stroop

…model of using “small fellowship groups” to “provide the kind of personal contact and accountability otherwise lacking in large, anonymous megachurch services” as if this is a novel approach. After all, anyone who is or has been evangelical could tell you that small groups have been a staple of evangelical churches for decades. In short, Hinch’s article is a 4466-word-long exercise in rhetorical sleight-of-hand by a man who clearly holds critics…

Sacred&Profane: On Sexual Diversity, Perversity, and Ecstasy

By Gary Laderman

…ipped of all of its external trappings… What I am left with is an ecstatic contact with Self.” The specifics of his religious experience vary depending, he says, on whether or not he is on top and in control, in which case Baldwin keeps his wits about him and does not lose consciousness. But make no mistake, the entire ritual does have an other-worldly, spiritually liberating quality, whether Baldwin loses control of sensory processing or not: “th…

Hajj Journal: Visiting the Kingdom is Not the Same as Visiting the King

By Amina Wadud

…oad of people, so these are the steps: Once I was in touch with our Jeddah contact person, I was taken to the cafeteria area to join our “group”. Then I was given a meal with half a pound of rice and half a chicken. (try to keep count how many times food offerings will be made this evening, okay?). From that point forward, my brain or my wits were no longer on demand. So I let somebody else took care of everything, in their own way, but hey, it’s…

Top 10 Reasons Mormons Should “Take It Down a Notch for America” This Election Season

By Joanna Brooks

…t down a notch for America” this election season: 1. The Holy Ghost gets a contact rash from extremist political rhetoric. 2. There’s no need to freak out over politics when you have a year’s supply of rice, beans, wheat, and texturized vegetable protein in your garage. 3. No matter how socialist President Obama allegedly gets, he’s not bringing back the United Order. 4. It’s called the “plan of happiness,” not the “plan of paranoid partisan rheto…

Theologians Claim Death Row Inmate as One of Their Own

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…e personally,” in this case, means “knowing someone who has regular social contact with people possessing masters and doctoral degrees and/or large Twitter followings and/or several published books to their credit”? Too, it’s not as though everyone involved knew Gissendaner and counted her as a friend: some, like me, were friends with people who knew her, and their pain—maybe unavoidably?—lent urgency to Gissendaner’s case. At the same time, I don…

Can You Become Un-Autistic?

By Michael Schulson

…autism. Like other toddlers receiving the diagnosis, Alex rarely makes eye contact, finds it difficult to communicate, and shows hypersensitivity to many stimuli. He undergoes behavioral therapy, attends special schools, and eventually shifts to a non-special needs classroom. By the time Alex is 10, he’s no longer displaying enough symptoms to fall on the autism spectrum. He has, in a sense, been cured. Is this a triumphant story of therapeutic su…

Debating God: Atheist and Evangelical Face Off at Notre Dame

By Nathan Schneider

…r and gave the opening speech. He’s tall, a bit lanky, steady with his eye-contact, and erring on the side of clean-cut. Around here, he’s someone who can get things done and get money out of the administration. Even professors talk about him with a shade of awe. As a freshman he was class president, but then he quit student government for greater things. He also has a visionary streak, and a knack for stringing winged words together into crescend…

Forget “Nasty,” Trump’s Got a “Disgusting” Problem

By Karen E. Park

…ose who were too disgusting to touch, and brought themselves into intimate contact with the physical realities of infection and cancer. They understood that disgust for human beings has no place in the Christian life. Donald Trump seems to live in a near permanent state of disgust. He finds not only the human body but human beings “disgusting” and “nasty.” Disgust is part of what allows him to revile and dehumanize people regularly. It fuels his h…

Nonviolence, Muslim Style: From Ghaffar Khan to Tahrir Square

By Eric Stoner

…named Ghaffar Khan. So I thought I’d write about him. Through a series of contacts I was able to actually speak to his family in Peshawar, where they control a political party. They are not exactly living up to his ideals—they claim to, but it’s dubious. His grandson was happy to speak with me. I wrote an article about him, and that is how I got interested in Islam and nonviolence. What was it about him that made you want to explore the subject…

In Repudiation of its Devastating Doctrine of Discovery, Vatican Masks the History and Responsibility of Catholic Church

By Elisha Chi

…rchdiocese issued a letter to be read at each mass, urging parishioners to contact their political representatives to advocate against extending the statute of limitations on child sex abuse cases. This rhetoric of separation between the political and the religious arises again in Pope Francis’s recent apology for the atrocities committed by Catholics operating Canadian residential schools. As he expressed, “many Christians supported the colonizin…