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Vatican Considers ‘Disordered’ Language; HBO Doc on LGBT Persecution in Russia; Nigerian Bishop Shifts on Anti-Gay Law; Arson at ‘Open Mosque’ in South Africa; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ds of the Commonweal blog, Kaigama “complained about Western attempts to influence African values—especially the flooding of the continent with condoms.” Archbishop Zbigņevs Stankevičs of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Riga said in an interview with LifeSite News that gay relationships are “destroying our human identity.” Church of England: Conservative Group Abandons Discussion on Same-Sex Couples A conservative group within the Church of Engl…

Is It OK To Use a Cellphone in Church? Pew Surveys the New Etiquette

By Michael Schulson

…, speculating, and damn, those kids are all doing x, y, and z on their cellphones, and it’s an outrage! Pew’s study of cellphone etiquette gives us one way to begin digging into a much larger set of questions: which norms do we, and should we, place around the use of digital tools? When are these opinions just personal preferences, and when do they take on a more explicit ethical dimension? When should we enforce them? Part of the problem is that…

Lying About Our Religion, And Other Problems With Polling

By Michael Schulson

…his group. In doing so, they actually helped define it (and possibly overinflate it). Evangelical leaders trying to help build political muscle for their flocks—especially Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson—encouraged these efforts, cited the polls, and at times even commissioned them. Today, when media outlets talk about “evangelicals,” they almost always mean white, politically conservative, born-again Protestants, unless they specify otherwise. Th…

The Problem with Pew’s Science & Religion Poll

By Andrew Aghapour and Michael Schulson

…on Pew’s results, proclaiming that “Most in US Say Religion and Science Conflict,” or “Conflicts between Faith, Science May be Overhyped.” These headlines are misleading, but they’re much sexier than our own best attempt: Someone Prompted a Small Sample of Americans to Choose One of Two Options Signifying the Relationship Between Science and Religion, and You Won’t Believe What Happened Next! Look, we’re trying. Reporting the report While the stud…

Religious Hostility to Gay Nigerians; The Pope’s Visit To Africa; Ireland’s Religious Schools Can’t Discriminate Against Gays; Orthodox Church in Georgia Leads Anti-Gay Forces; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…stified defense of Georgian tradition in the face of encroaching Western influence.” ISIS: Executions of gay men continue; cited by UK’s Cameron in debate on military action Bassem Mroue reports for Associated Press on the ongoing targeting and killing of gay men by Islamic State militants. Mroue interviewed a Syrian man who has fled to Turkey: Life for gays in Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city, was always hidden, Halaby said. When the secular-led peac…

Is There Hope for a Truly Progressive Evangelicalism? An Interview with Deborah Jian Lee

By Eric C. Miller

…he cancer that had crawled across his body, had lain in bed at home with a phone against his ear while my pastor, who had called him from the pulpit, pointed a cordless phone toward the congregation; we all wept and sang him love songs as he lay dying. These are uniquely evangelical experiences that shaped me, that will always be a part of me. I still long for this kind of community—the kind that journeys together through all the peaks and valleys…

How To Talk To “Nones” and Influence People: Rob Bell’s Transrational Experience

By Brook Wilensky-Lanford

…of the wood-and-brick interior was a ring of black café tables with fresh flowers. On one side of the room was a glass wall that afforded a view of gigantic ancient copper kettles and brewing machines. Folding chairs had been arranged in concentric circles radiating outward from an empty space in the middle; a hundred or so people milled about, friendly, excited to be there. There were long beards and shaved heads, T-shirts reading “Spiritual Ang…

Should NASA Have Given $1.1 Million to a Theology Institute?

By Michael Schulson

…e walls tumbling down? When the Freedom From Religion Foundation puts your phone call on hold, you don’t hear muzak. Instead, the phone system plays a homegrown jingle featuring lines like “Everyone is tired of your piety / get off your knees and get to work” and “We’ve got to fight the battle of church and state / or the walls come tumbling down.” The receptionist told me that FFRF co-president Dan Barker, a former evangelical preacher and occasi…

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

By Peter Laarman

…amous 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 history of black people. The media lied about it, of course. They said I didn’t know…

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

By Spencer Dew

…sion with his own person image, as in the recently released transcripts of phone calls with Mexico and Australia, is all too apparent as a dominant and guiding focus) or a problem with those picked to actually “communicate” on behalf of the White House (from a Press Secretary who hid “among” bushes and banned cameras from press conferences to a Director of Communications who, in the early and yet also late days of his short-lived job accused one u…