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Why #FreeBritney is an #Exvangelical Cause

By R.L. Stollar

…once a Contemporary Christian Music artist, Spears has deep roots in white American evangelicalism. Born and raised in the Bible Belt and surrounded by conservative evangelical Protestants, Spears grew up Southern Baptist and spent her childhood performing in Baptist choirs. For her very first stage performance, when she was five years old, she sang “What Child Is This” at her kindergarten graduation. Spears was actually a standard-bearer for evan…

Pastor of Kentucky Church Severed From Baptists Over LGBT Inclusion: Not Activism, Just Honesty

By Mike Greer

…years. I came about the time that folks from Burma began arriving in large numbers and uniting in membership with Crescent Hill, and much of my time in those early years was spent trying to figure out how in the world we might be able to be a unified body that includes people who don’t speak English, who have a completely foreign background and cultural experience. It took a lot of hard work but we reached a place a number of years ago where, whil…

What To Do When Fred Phelps Arrives in Your Neighborhood

By Susan Henking

…l or fantasy football, I thought this sport could become a virtual part of American civil religion. The Holy Trinity of American Sports as Craig Forney has phrased it in his book (subtitled Civil Religion in Football, Baseball, and Basketball) are everywhere in their fantasy forms these days. Since each can each be seen as a core part of American civil or cultural religion, why not their fantasy versions? And, since dissent is a crucial aspect of…

Normalization is Control: Telling Stories to Survive

By Mariam Durrani

…for myself, my family, and colleagues. So I’ve been trying to draft a short 800-word article for Religion Dispatches, as my attempt to make sense of this current moment, not because I chose this as an anthropological project, but here I am. Here I am listening to Trump’s transition team drop words like Muslim registry or that there is a precedent for internment camps in American history. The news that the KKK has been dropping their newsletter off…

Double Helix: Who’s Your Daddy?

By Arri Eisen

…g like hotcakes. According to the Web site, complete with the iconic 1-800 number and attractive female operator with headset, the IDENTIGENE test is “Fast. Accurate. Confidential.” It’s not the speed, accuracy, nor confidentiality that worry me so much (although plenty of problems lurk therein). It’s more the information itself, its power, and in what context it is received. Personally, I’m not too interested in the test for myself. I know who my…

Are Atheists Taking 1st Amendment Suits Too Far?

By Gordon Haber

…religion. And despite some notable outliers (cough*Joel Osteen*cough) most American clergymen don’t make much money. In 2010, while the median salary for American rabbis was about $140,000, Catholic priests averaged $25,000 and Protestant ministers $40,000. Should we begrudge them the opportunity to save a little money? To my mind, the more intriguing suit was filed by American Atheists, who want the IRS to require churches and religious organizat…

“Stress Test” a Con: Obama Still Coddling Banks

By Peter Laarman

…dulous “reporting” of the whole affair in the corporate media. Only a tiny number of outlier critics—like Simon Johnson—are given any air time at all. Everybody else, from NPR to Fox News, goes right along with the cute “stress test” metaphor, forgetting that the so-called patient being “tested” is actually an 800-pound gorilla that needs to be put into a cage if not shot dead outright. Johnson pointed out this morning that today’s news non-event…

On the Taliban’s Hit List: An Exiled Pakistani Singer’s Plea to Save Music

By Austin Dacey

…are of Mingora town. Journalist Shaheen Buneri has estimated that more than 800 music shops have been bombed or attacked in the Northwest since 2006. I spoke with a man who had personally witnessed Islamist thugs destroying traditional instruments in front of the players whose lives depended on them. It was against this backdrop that I put some questions to the man at the harmonium. Because of continuing danger at home, he wished to remain anonymo…

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

By Sarah Posner

…is issue with neo-Nazis, and how such a discussion got him banned from the American white supremacist site Stormfront and another “national socialist forum.” He goes on to maintain that because America has “nation-wrecking multiculturalist Jews,” rather than “conservative Jews” it has a “Jewish problem:” In any case; educate yourself and learn the difference. Today’s conservatives and want to-be Nazis are ignorant when they obsess so much over the…

The Burning Houses of Worship We Missed

By Gordon Haber

…erusalem. Notre Dame will take years and millions of euros to rebuild. The American church fires are just one more infuriating symptom of a nation turning against its own citizens, though it is encouraging that, in the wake of Notre Dame, donations to the Louisiana churches have begun to surge. I wouldn’t underplay the seriousness of what happened in Paris, Jerusalem, and Louisiana. But I do find it fascinating, in a depressing way, that a 13th ce…