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Boy Scout “Perversion Files” Raise Questions about Abuse in Mormon Contexts

By Joanna Brooks

…ims and accusers. In 1995, the Church established stronger guidelines and new protocols for reporting abuse, including a 1-800 number for local clergy. …

Conservative Christians Oppose New ‘Inter-Religious’ University

By Philip Clayton

Claremont School of Theology caught national attention on June 9 with the announcement of a new inter-religious university. Beginning in the fall, students at this Methodist seminary will study side by side with students from the Academy of Jewish Religion in Los Angeles and the Islamic Center of Southern California. The San Diego Jewish Journal calls it “the world’s first multi-religious graduate school.” Of course, Claremont is not alone. Hartf…

Colorado’s Personhood Initiative Fails—For Now

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

Colorado’s fetal personhood ballot initiative petition failed to get enough valid signatures, and so the measure will not appear on the ballot, Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler announced this morning. According to the Denver Post, some of the signatures were deemed invalid, so the petition was found to have only 85,800 valid signatures—305 signatures short of the required 86,105. Jennifer Mason, speaking for Personhood Colorado, said tha…

Catholic Church Ordained Women Before, Can Do it Again

By Phyllis Zagano

…onate from priesthood and episcopacy. In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI changed Canon Law and codified what the Catechism of the Catholic Church already stated: bishops and priests are not deacons. The two canons—1008 and 1009—make it very clear that, while all three “grades” are sacramentally ordained, the deacon is ordained to the ministry and not to the priesthood. The mistake made by those who argue against the restoration of women to the order of de…

Racist Remarks by popular BYU Religion Professor Spark Controversy

By Joanna Brooks

…clared the end of the priesthood ban in June 1978, an announcement later canonized as scripture, but he did not address its historic origins or theological rationale. A few months later, in August 1978, Elder Bruce R. McConkie, a member of the Church’s high-ranking Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, once a leading proponent of racist theological justifications of the ban, told a gathering of LDS educators: “Forget everything that I have said, or what…

Norway Massacre Suspect Anders Behring Breivik, Hitler, & the Jerusalem Post Editorial

By Sarah Posner

…fectly well what the consequences would be for their tribes if they lost,” nonetheless “went ahead and completed the job” (note that Breivik at no point employs the word Holocaust). Breivik then turns his anti-multiculturalism screed against Jews, disparaging Jews who “support multiculturalism” and lauding those who do not. He describes the latter as “Israeli nationalists (who want to deport the Muslims from Israel)” (apparently something he appro…

Did the Pope Embrace the Prosperity Gospel?

By Sarah Posner

Late last month, Pope Francis met with charismatic Christian and Pentecostal leaders at the Vatican, including prosperity gospel televangelist Kenneth Copeland, a popular American religious figure whose theology and lifestyle is directly at odds with the Pope’s. The meeting was not the humble Pope’s first encounter with the self-anointed bishops of bling. In February, he recorded a video message for a Copeland conference, in which he called for u…

Are Atheists Taking 1st Amendment Suits Too Far?

By Gordon Haber

…to fulfill the same obligations as other nonprofit groups. Currently most nonprofits are required to file Form 990, “Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax.” The upshot is that their finances are public record. But religious groups don’t have to bother, which, obviously, can allow for a lot of financial chicanery. The loss in tax revenue from such groups is estimated to be $71 billion per year, but again this is more about transparency tha…

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…

Violent, Genocidal Anti-Palestinian Rhetoric Moving to US?

By David Sheen

…se, his funeral last October was the largest in the country’s history, with 800,000 Israelis attending. In the past month, Rabbi Noam Perel, head of Bnei Akiva, the largest Jewish religious youth group in the world, called for the mass-murder of Palestinians and for their foreskins to be scalped and brought back as trophies, alluding to an episode in the Book of Samuel; and a Jerusalem city councillor, in charge of security, encouraged a crowd to…