Search for "bbc news cleantalkorg2.ru bbc news news word news usa Breaking News Live Updates Politics World News The New York Times"

An Obituary for Right-Wing Evangelicalism?

By Becky Garrison

…them a hard blow. But those still espousing a Victorian-era muscular Christianity found purpose in their driven life. They stood firm against the rising tide of secular humanism, calling out the US Supreme Court for being too queer for words. Even the thrice-married Newt Gingrich could not revise history and steer the party back on course. Having left Jesus at a bus stop, waiting to catch a ride with some voyaging nuns, right-wing evangelicalism…

Hillary-the-Preacher, and Why Journalists Can’t Let Go of the “Democrats Don’t Get Religion” Story

By Daniel Schultz

…didates should receive support from the party.) So why is the religion-and-politics narrative always “Democrats are failing at faith outreach”? We live in a religiously pluralistic society, and faith outreach of any variety carries significant risk. Voters are tribal these days, and part of the GOP tribal self-definition is that Democrats are not religious. More than a few (but less than a lot) progressives left religious affiliation behind exactl…

Why Did a Muslim Civil Rights Group Oppose Democrats’ Plans to Confront White Nationalism?

By Elizabeth Shakman Hurd and Brannon Ingram

…ation of anti-Muslim policies and practices. The Nigerian government used Trump’s words calling for lethal force against rock-throwing migrants to justify killing rock-throwing Shi‘i protesters. War on Terror rhetoric has fueled indiscriminate massacres of Fulani villagers in Mali, simply because al-Qaeda’s branch in Mali has drawn heavily from ethnic Fulanis. Connecting these “two faces” of the U.S. experience is a continuing challenge, and also…

Christian Responses to COVID-19 Raise Old Religion v. Science Questions

By Chrissy Stroop

…phic only too willing to nod in agreement when Trump dismisses the coronavirus as a “hoax,” Rush Limbaugh says it’s just “the common cold,” or Falwell says it’s a plot to “get Trump.” None of this means that all religion is incompatible with science, but if so many Christians are endangering the lives of themselves and others, that is a serious problem that needs to be addressed. Is there any hope? Giberson muses that with respect to coronavirus,…

A Divided Pro-Life Movement

By Julie Ingersoll

…nuclear weapons and often even nuclear power. Several factors in American politics have kept this division hidden (the extremes tend to get the attention, media people and academics often don’t know enough about anti-abortion politics to see the cleavages etc.) but the “seamless garment” or “whole life ethic” opposition to abortion has been a part of the pro-life movement since its beginning. These pro-lifers argue that there could be far fewer a…

An Interview from Tahrir Square

By Waleed Naif

…etween Mecca during the Hajj and sunny day at Hyde Park. Thousands upon thousands crowded in Tahrir Square drawing banners, debating politics, singing, dancing and breathing their very first breath of genuine freedom without fear. I entered the square to witness first-hand the million-man march called for a few days after the “Day of Wrath” on January 25th and the “Friday of Anger” that followed. It was a carnival of political will celebrating a n…

Studying Religion is Suddenly Popular

By Mark Hulsether

…t is virtuously out of step with most Ivy League schools. Third, and most crucially, that it is running away from what is clearly coded as a shame or embarrassment: its “legacy of Christian origins.” Apparently the problem is that some Religious Studies programs—notably Harvard’s, from which Robert Orsi luckily “fled”—still train some of their students for careers related to Protestant Christianity. Now, virtually everyone in the field wants to di…

Don’t Ignore the Role of “Christian Values” in Conservative Conspiracy

By Carmen Celestini

…of mind as one with that preceding the burning of witches, the children’s crusade, the great tulip craze and other examples of the softening of the world brain.” Conspiracy theories about communists hiding in the leadership of religious and political institutions also flourished during the McCarthy era, with McCarthy himself having publicly stated in 1951 that Secretaries of State George Marshall and Dean Acheson had conspired to deliver China to…

The Curious Case of Mormons and LGBT Rights

By Alan Michael Williams

…through the Church more than through a body of civil laws will continue to live in a world where same-sex intimacy is forbidden; now, they need only look to Pride to see this message on display. On the other hand, underreported small groups of Mormons marched in various cities outside the Mormon Corridor behind Pride banners that read “Mormons for Marriage Equality” (M4ME)—recently renamed “Mormons for Equality” given how marriage is not the be-al…

Trump and the Bible Dodge

By Sarah Posner

…es how the piety test is often a proxy for other, irreligious motives. The New York Times columnist Frank Bruni, for one, was shocked by evangelicals whose support of Trump is antithetical to the sacred text they claim is the foundation of our country. As historian Kevin Kruse points out, though, the fact that Ronald Reagan was a divorced non-church-goer who once supported abortion rights didn’t stop evangelicals from supporting him, either. Let’s…