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Angry Voters, Right-Wing Populism, & Racial Violence: People of Faith Can Help Break the Linkages

By Chip Berlet

…h up with the Rev. David Ostendorf by cell phone while he is waiting for a plane at an East Coast airport. He is the executive director of the CNC where Ward works. Ostendorf, A United Church of Christ minister, once led PrairieFire Rural Action, a group that tried to save family farms during a major agricultural economic crisis in the 1980s. “Back then we helped build a popular economic political movement among family farmers across the country s…

“I ‘Came Out’ For Marriage Equality”: An Anti-Gay Activist Changes His Mind

By Welton Gaddy

…s say you run into someone on the street, or have a seat by someone on the plane, and they say: “You know, I’ve always believed that…,” and they tell you what they believe. “It’s what I grew up with.” Maybe, “I’ve even been involved in activism. But I’m having doubts, and I really am afraid of what might happen if I look at those doubts too closely. Do you have advice for me?” Well, I would say that it would be important to find a circle of peopl…

Still Left Behind: What the Endurance of the Left Behind Cinematic Universe Can Tell Us About Conservative Moral Psychology

By Christopher Douglas

…the former leaves off with Cage as protagonist Rayford Steele landing the plane from which many passengers have been raptured, while the latter picks up in the following months, with Rayford (now played by Sorbo) and others becoming born-again Christians and uniting as the Tribulation Force to fight the Antichrist. The 2023 adaptation updates its topical currency with references to “fake news” and “all souls matter,” collapsing the post-Rapture f…

Gays Attacked in Uganda After Mag Publishes Info

By Jody May-Chang

…the people who were outed in the newspaper.” Earlier, just hours after his plane touched down in Boise on November 1, Kiyimba learned that Rolling Stone had just published a second round of names under the headline: “More Homos’ Faces Exposed.” Identities were published despite a court injunction, filed days earlier, preventing the paper from outing gays. Kiyimba said the injunctions are meaningless in any case as publishers simply wait for the te…

Trump Doesn’t Need to “Pivot” if Evangelicals Do it For Him

By Paul Harvey

…western civilization . . . This country is the equivalent of that hijacked plane right now. We’re headed to a disaster, unless we can get control of the cockpit again. Trump made clear what it meant to save Western Civilization. In a nutshell, it is to resurrect and defend “our Christian heritage,” and protect children from a media culture of mockery. Trump will tell the media culture, “you’re fired!” TRUMP: Yet, our media culture often mocks and…

A New, Softer Prosperity Gospel Still Can’t Deliver On Its Promises of Health and Wealth

By Verdell A. Wright

…s Royces, “Money Cometh to You” conferences, or Creflo Dollar asking for a plane. Instead, prosperity preachers offer lifestyle management, paths to financial success, and encouragement to remain positive in spite of challenges. In 2013’s Blessed, Kate Bowler describes these gentler takes on prosperity theology as trending toward positive thinking and Christian self-help. She describes the soft prosperity gospel as “therapeutic and emotive, a way…

Did Scientologists Take Over the Today Show?

By Becky Garrison

…a similar soft sell story by showcasing John Travolta’s efforts to pilot a plane to Haiti filled with supplies and, of course, volunteer ministers. They failed to inquire as to the specific service that will be provided by these ministers. Once again, the nature of the services provided by the Church of Scientology remained fuzzy though it is clear that such stories only serve to give legitimacy to an organization’s activities that are fueled by s…

Netflix’s Iranian ‘Messiah’ Is a Gift to Trump and His Evangelical Base

By Tony Keddie

…wers to abandon their faith. But then the season ends with him surviving a plane crash and apparently raising other passengers from the dead. (Cue season 2 chatter.) If Golshiri does indeed have superpowers but is also deceptive, he fits the profile of the Antichrist who will come before the world ends, or “the deceiving messiah” known as Al-Masih ad-Dajjal in Islamic traditions. The show’s depiction of Golshiri as a Russian operative qua Antichri…

Ping-Pong Politics After Underwear Bomber

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…been ever since another failed attempt by Richard Reid to bring down an airplane plane with explosives demonstrated the potential dangers of shoes. Not so in Europe. Debates about the potential violation of civil liberties posed by scanning machinery that provides imaging of a human body under its clothes seem destined to wind up in courts of law. For now, the U.S. seems more willing to countenance the use of such devices than the Europeans (with…

Conservative Points in Pope’s Speech Include Liberal “Chasers”

By Patricia Miller

…ry act of returning issues like abortion and same-sex marriage to the same plane of concern as the environment, poverty and immigration. Francis has removed the anti-abortion trump card that allowed conservative Catholics and their allies to ignore most of the church’s social justice teaching on issues like immigration and poverty and still be assured they were “good Catholics.” He explicitly challenged the long-standing contention of the US Catho…