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Election Reporters: Here’s Why Simply Descriptors Like ‘Christians’ Can Have Enormous Consequences

By Daniel Schultz

…For a lot of reasons, conservative Christians tend to own the cultural megaphone today. (Most important among them: conservative judges endorsing extremist conservative Christian arguments.) So I don’t expect the average person to understand all the nuances. But journalists covering national politics, especially those on the Trump beat, need to do better. Here’s why. First of all, it’s a matter of accuracy. As Sarah Posner points out on Bluesky, t…

Democrats Have Seized the Narrative Frame From the GOP, But Can They Find a Better Story to Tell About an Inclusive, Pluralist US?

By Chrissy Stroop

…does it say about the broader vision that it was accompanied by chants of “USA! USA!” and a “tough on crime” stance embodied by a sheriff who once worked with right-wing wackos on their (at best) morally dubious anti-trafficking missions? Once again, Democrats cede moral ground by uncritically adopting GOP framing instead of trying to shift the conversation to something that represents the party’s inclusive and progressive vision. That brings us t…

Survey Says: Mainline Clergy Lean Liberal

By Robert P. Jones

…Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, American Baptist Churches USA, Presbyterian Church USA, Episcopal Church, United Church of Christ, and Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). This isn’t a homogenous group, and there are some significant differences across denominational lines, but support for an activist, justice-seeking government that works for the common good cuts across all of them. These Christian clergy also bring a fresh vo…

What American Flag-Worship Looks Like to a New Citizen

By Rosalind C. Hughes

…telling liturgical response from the gathered congregation was a chant of “USA! USA!” Indeed. Three weeks after I first moved to the United States with my family, and one week into our American public school adventures, my youngest daughter asked me, “Mummy, did you know that we pray to the flag every morning at school?” Any discussion of an American “civil religion” needs to take account not only of history and of ideology, but of the religious r…

Who is Mat Staver, Counsel for Anti-Gay Activist Against Suit from Uganda?

By Sarah Posner

….” The letter, dated September 22, 2008, claimed that Miller “is one of thousands across this nation who have left the homosexual lifestyle through the redeeming power of Jesus Christ.” The three-page plea was an homage to Miller’s elevation of Scripture over court orders, noting, “Lisa could be thrown in jail for refusing to expose her child to Janet’s harmful and destructive lifestyle,” as a result of her refusal to comply with the visitation or…

Presidential Pep Talks and the Religion of Fear: How did an Uncontroversial Speech Become a National Controversy?

By Eric Reitan

…d. And in response to the controversy and the barrage of outraged parental phone calls, many school systems decided it was safest not to air the speech at all. Others required that alternative activities be arranged for children whose parents refused to permit their kids to be subjected to an encouraging presidential pep talk. The evening after the talk, the local news station I was watching aired a report on the event, complete with footage of a…

Sacred Real Estate: What Makes Washington’s WWII Memorial So Dreadful?

By Michael A. Elliott

…cribbage in the trenches, and the exotic surprises that Australia and the Philippines held for an Oregon farmboy. Of course, there was a good deal more to his war, but he didn’t care to talk about that. He was a proud veteran who would be buried in a Veteran’s Cemetery not far from the towns where he lived most of his life, but he was also a profoundly modest man. If he thought he belonged to the “greatest generation,” he never showed it. So it w…

Still from the set of “The Exorcist: Believer" shows six people surrounding a bound, possessed girl all attempting to exorcise the demon.

Ecumenical ‘Exorcist’ Sequel Reflects Profound Cultural Changes Since the Catholic Original

By Joseph Laycock

…y, when Pentecostal missionary Lester Sumrall performed an exorcism in The Philippines in 1953, he used it as evidence that his faith had power over demons and Catholicism did not. But at some point, what was at stake in exorcism began to shift again—at least in the popular, Western imagination. The alignment shifted from rivalries between churches to a battle between our disenchanted present and our spiritual past. Before The Exorcist used red fo…

A Pope, a Poet, and a Drug War

By Stephen Andes

…ontiff’s upcoming apostolic visit to Mexico (March 23-26). Hundreds of thousands of Catholic faithful are expected to descend on the Mexican heartland city of León, Guanajuato in coming days, where Benedict will hold several large public masses, meet with Mexican bishops, and discuss religious policy issues with President Felipe Calderón. The event marks the first papal visit to Mexico since 2002, led by then-Pope John Paul II. By all accounts, t…

Storytime with David Brooks: In Which the Liberals’ Favorite Conservative Gets Lost in a Lily-White History

By Peter Laarman

…idence in 1900 that God had blessed the genocidal American takeover of the Philippines. He seems unaware of how the inevitable hubris associated with the idea of a national (divine) election continues to let Americans ignore what the rest of the world has long perceived as a brutal and bloody imperalism manifesting itself in places like Vietnam and Iran. I mean, how can God’s anointed nation possibly be doing such awful things? Where white America…