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Yes, It Can Be Hard to Be an Atheist in America; Now We Have the Data

By Chrissy Stroop

…saulted over their unbelief, although for African-American respondents the number is 2.5%. Meanwhile, 12% of respondents experienced threats of violence, and 2.5% experienced vandalism (14.2% and 3.2%, respectively, for Latinx respondents). None of these facts make the experience of “coming out” as nonreligious the same as coming out as LGBTQ, but they do nonetheless show that disclosing one’s nonreligious identity can be fraught and risky dependi…

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

By Brook Wilensky-Lanford

…and the message, but actually hungry for both. When I spoke to Bell on the phone a couple weeks after the event in Durham, he told me, In some ways what I do is basic pastoring. It’s, you give people an idea, you let them respond to it, you give them another idea….it’s basic spiritual direction. Like the itinerant rabbi, the guru—not to say that I’m a guru—but there’s a long tradition [of that kind of work]. But so many people right now are rethin…

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…

Week in Religion: More Praying in Texas, First Hindu Chaplain, Modest Muslim Weightlifter

By Michael J. Altman

…Captain Pratima Dharm is the first Hindu chaplain in the U.S. military. An Oregon faith-healing couple were convicted of felony criminal mistreatment when they chose to seek ritual faith healing for a growth over their daughter’s eye instead of medical care. The rector of a Muslim University in Russia was gunned down. Maksud I. Sadikov sought to revive local Sufi traditions of Islam as a counter to violence in the area. The Crystal Cathedral is st…

Rick Santorum Figures Out the Feminist Plot to Create “Phony” Abortion Exceptions

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…y enough: It was back in 1973, at the Women’s Exchange tea room in Eugene, Oregon. (To the public, it was billed as a Missionary Society presentation.) We had just finished singing a song about the weavings of our foremothers wombs, or something, and just before that Missy “No Pants” McDonyell had given a presentation arguing that it should be illegal for a man to grill meat in his own backyard. (Ostensibly, as I recall, it was because of the sexi…

Will Gay Rights Pave the Way for Decriminalizing Mormon Polygamy?

By Joanna Brooks

…elements of mainstream Mormon doctrine. As then-Senator Gordon Smith from Oregon (Republican, and Mormon) observed back in 2008, “Part of what I fear, as you start defining marriage—we have a long history of doing that in this country, and my Mormon pioneer ancestors were the victims of that. They were literally driven from the United States in the dead of winter for following their religious beliefs. I don’t want that coming back.” During his te…

Cue the Kool-Aid: Watching Jonestown Docs in the ‘Fake News’ Era

By Rebecca Moore

…series revealed the escalating conflict between the residents of Antelope, Oregon and the followers of the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Viewers could well understand the concern that locals had about the influx of thousands of newcomers, but they could also appreciate the frustration the Rajneeshees experienced as they attempted to construct a large religious community in a sparsely populated area. In addition, the difference between re-enactments…

WikiLeaks Strikes the Vatican, a Camel in the Pews, and Luke Skywalker Tolerance

By Michael J. Altman

…in Stockholm shake their belief in tolerance. In the wake of last month’s Oregon bombing case, Attorney General Eric Holder defended the use of sting operations where undercover agents are sent into US mosques as “an essential law enforcement tool.” In Georgia, the ACLU is suing the City of Douglasville on behalf of a woman who wasn’t allowed to wear her headscarf into a courtroom and was subsequently jailed for contempt. Fort Worth, Texas is in…

Leaked ‘Freedom Convoy’ Donor Comments Clearly Demonstrate Christian Nationalist Presence

By Thomas Lecaque

…, mixed between Isaiah, Revelation and Joshua 6. For example, a donor from Oregon writes: “You’re our Joshua that marched around Jericho 7 times and they blew the trumpets and the walls came down. If God is with us, who can be against us. God be with you all!” While another from Ontario writes, “Thank you truckers for your compassion, love, courage and tenacity. I, along with many of my friends, greatly appreciate what you are doing for humanity w…

The Road to Decriminalization of Psychoactive Drugs Runs Through Religion

By Brad Stoddard

…hree years later a lower court ruled that members of a similar religion in Oregon have a religious right to consume what they call Daime, a variation of the base ingredients used to create ayahuasca. In these decisions, justices did not invoke the word entheogen, but reinforced the broader idea that under certain circumstances, Americans had a legal right to consume otherwise forbidden psychoactive drugs. While the entheogenic use of psychoactive…