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Is the Bible Too Holy to Be Tennessee’s State Book?

By Adam Shapiro

…hing is also based there, and even though Thomas Nelson is a subsidiary of New York-based Harper Collins, its offices are in Nashville. It’s hardly unusual for declarations of state symbols to recognize locally significant industries. Earlier this month, Maine adopted its edible export the lobster as the official state crustacean. The state flag of Arizona contains reference to the state’s copper industry. But state symbol designations can also be…

Poets and Preachers: How Black Literature Blurs the Lines Between Sacred and Secular

By Josef Sorett

…th on the page and performed on stage—was for me a source of respite and renewal from the rigors of graduate school and the rhythms of church life. By the time I entered the Ph.D. program a few years later, I found myself wanting a deeper historical understanding of the relationship between poets and preachers, and what I had witnessed in the present taking places in churches and salons. Spirit in the Dark: A Religious History of Racial Aesthetics…

To Be Queer, Gifted, and Black: A Conversation with Theologian Pamela Lightsey

By Nyasha Junior

…d that love and inspire you to do the work against social injustice in our world. What new projects are you working on? That’s a good question. I often lay in bed thinking about the research I want to continue to do. In my womanist research, I’m still trying to pull out what it means to be black and LGBTQ in the world today. I’m really curious as to how faith impacts the LGBTQ community to do social justice work. How does your faith influence your…

Sorry, National Review: “Religious Freedom” Bills Do Permit Bigotry

By Sunnivie Brydum

…btedly deserves to be placed in scare quotes, as publications ranging from New York magazine to the Wall Street Journal do. The author’s complaints about Lang willfully misrepresenting the facts are particularly laughable in the face of the outright falsehoods Desanctis offers in response. Most immediately and demonstrably, Desanctis implies that “religious freedom” bills and the executive order are concerned only with marriage. And while the Supr…

A Pair of Exhibitions Demonstrate How Biases Color the History of Jerusalem

By Gordon Haber

…lestine,” that harshly criticizes Israel’s archaeological excavations in Jerusalem. The resolution, among other things, also “deeply regrets” the Israeli refusal to allow Unesco observers to report on the competency of those excavations. The predictable outrage of Israel and its supporters, however, is mostly connected to how Unesco elides the ancient Jewish connection to Jerusalem, referring to the Temple Mount only by its Arabic name, Al-Haram A…

For Men (and Heterosexuals) Only: A MEMO To Catholic Theologians and Educators

By Mary E. Hunt

…, whether we like it or not. For Catholic teachers to persist in using the word “matrimony” or “marriage,” when what is intended is heterosexual marriage is incorrect and easily fixed. Second, the same principles apply to the question of the “Sacrament of Holy Orders” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Part II, Section 2, Chapter 3, Article 6). As long as we are revising, let’s fix this error as well. Since ordination in the Roman Catholic Church…

“I Can’t Defend My People”: Opting Out of Evangelicalism, Post-Election

By Anita Little

…hristianity. You’ve become a category for pollsters rather than pastors, a word of exclusion rather than embrace…What was admirable about your name has been buried, crushed under the weight of 60 million votes. I am no less committed to Christ, his gospel, and his church, but I can no longer be called an evangelical. https://twitter.com/d_l_mayfield/status/796229392112332800 https://twitter.com/JohnFea1/status/796228404144177152?ref_src=twsrc%5Etf…

Forget “Nasty,” Trump’s Got a “Disgusting” Problem

By Karen E. Park

…died. The famous crucifixion panel of The Isenheim Altarpiece by Matthias Grunewald shows an emaciated and ghoulishly pallid Christ, his body covered with sores, ragged wounds on his hands and feet, in a state of decay too advanced for someone who had just died. Grunewald’s Christ could certainly be called disgusting, as the patients in the monastery hospital for whom the painting was commissioned surely were (a hospital which specialized in The P…

Why I Miss Scalia: SCOTUS Punts on Religious Freedom

By Patricia Miller

…he Obama administration’s contraceptive mandate, the outcome of the latest ruling would be unimaginable. The Supreme Court yesterday refused to rule in the absence of Justice Scalia on the constitutionality of what has emerged as the most high-profile religious freedom case of our time and threw it back to the lower courts for some as yet unspecified “compromise” to what has been an endlessly compromised accommodation. That in itself would be bad…

Religious Freedom Org Sticking By Trump Clinging to SCOTUS Nominations

By Sunnivie Brydum

…f-appointed religious freedom fighters continue to overwhelmingly support Trump. But those allies, like Trump’s TV surrogates, are increasingly required to twist themselves into rhetorical pretzels to justify their candidate’s behavior, policies (or lack thereof) and unabashed disregard for the U.S. Constitution. Among those ready to contort themselves into Trump promotion machines at any cost is the right-wing Liberty Counsel, which describes its…