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Should NASA Have Given $1.1 Million to a Theology Institute?

By Michael Schulson

…a definition of theology that goes beyond Christian traditions, and that includes all the “conceptual commitments and modes of inquiry that together have enabled communities to investigate and understand the world in religious terms.” In this view, theology is a kind of pluralistic discussion that welcomes all kinds of premises and belief commitments as it tackles shared questions. It’s not just haggling over dogma, or defining the nature of God….

Godly Game or Godless Satire? Countering Biblical Ignorance with Heretical Humor

By Betsy Shirley

…y bits” of the Bible is a key component of faith. She explained that this includes the instances of abuse, rape, and domestic violence highlighted by A Game for Good Christians: “We can either engage it and figure out ways to acknowledge the ways it’s been used to hurt through the centuries, or we can completely disregard it and pretend it’s not there.” She added drily, “And we all know that works out real well.” Although A Game for Good Christian…

What Can a Real Life Haunting Tell Us About American Religion? [Updated]

By Daniel Wise

…the haunting is in keeping with a type of spirituality she shares with an increasing number of Americans. She holds what some academics would call a form of metaphysical spirituality. Historian of American religion Catherine Albanese traces metaphysical religion or spirituality through New Age spirituality back through late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century Theosophy and back to Spiritualism and Mesmerism. It’s a type of spirituality concerne…

Conservative Rep Grills Oklahoma Personhood Sponsors

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…tors are caught in the middle, and the voters themselves are… well… making phone calls and holding marches, because what else is there to do? (When I called the office of one member of the Public Health Committee to register my opposition to SB-1433, the staffer on the phone said, “Goodness, it seems like everyone in Oklahoma is calling.” I wearily replied that most of the calls must be in support of the bill, right? “Oh, no,” she said. “Against i…

Education, Texas-Style

By Lauri Lebo

…ly on Jefferson’s “Nature and Nature’s God” in the Declaration of Independence as evidence, erasing Jefferson for the sake of combating secularism may prove problematic down the road. I urge you to read the whole piece. But then again little things like cheating and lying don’t matter when you’ve convinced yourself that you’re one of the foot soldiers in the culture wars and that you’re fighting for Jesus. Maybe instead of calling Dr. McLeroy on…

Mormons Prepare to March in LGBT Pride Parades Nationwide

By Joanna Brooks

…ral Authorities, the Bible, and LDS hymns about loving your neighbor. You once had some concern about how the LGBT community would respond. What preparations have you been making? We initially entered the parade as the LDS Tolerance Brigade, but we quickly learned—I am learning so much—that tolerance is not the most welcoming word. So we changed our name to “Mormons Building Bridges.” When I went to the first organizing meeting, I also put my litt…

A Tale of Religious Tolerance… On Reddit

By Joanna Piacenza

…’t questioning which game the woman was playing on her phone, he was referencing the abundance of facial hair on the young woman’s face—a nod towards her Sikh beliefs of not altering her body image. Unaware that others around him might practice faiths besides his own, “european_douchebag” posted the picture under the Reddit tab “Funny,” hoping to get an elbow-in-the-side snickering reaction from the online community. But what happened next speaks…

The Lady Vanishes: Trump’s Communications Team Tries to Topple a Monument

By Spencer Dew

…her “everybody’s gal.” In wartimes she’s carried a sword, placed an urgent phone call for financial help, and even scolded her citizenry. As a mascot for our country, she’s been given the face of a skull on the streets of Tehran and been beheaded by Trump in a famous Der Spiegel cover from earlier this year. In the religious and cultural imagination of America, she’s been denounced as a demonic idol, revered as a Wiccan goddess, reimagined as a Ch…

Lying About Our Religion, And Other Problems With Polling

By Michael Schulson

…a certain messiness in the American polity. Syncretism, idiosyncrasy, and inconsistency are regular features of individuals’ spiritual lives. Little of that gets captured when you scale people up into categories. The complexities and weirdnesses of life Should the polling firms themselves be blamed for these fictions? They’re just asking the questions, after all. Pew, in particular, is admirably open and precise about its methods and terms. And mu…

Is There Hope for a Truly Progressive Evangelicalism? An Interview with Deborah Jian Lee

By Eric C. Miller

…o show that today the majority of Christians are pro-LGBTQ. Anecdotally, since my book has come out a number of pastors and Christian leaders of major evangelical organizations have reached out to me because this movement has prompted them to become LGBTQ-affirming and they are grappling with how to live out their convictions in a community so divided on this subject. We’re on the brink of something big that could change everything. Of all the ind…