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Inside InterVarsity’s Purge: Trauma and Termination at the Premier Evangelical Student Org

By Deborah Jian Lee

…esa Pasquale Mateus, LCSW, author of Sacred Wounds: A Path to Healing from Spiritual Trauma. Mateus sees patterns of spiritual abuse in some of InterVarsity’s treatment of LGBTQ-affirming staff and students and warns of serious emotional “collateral damage” in the aftermath of “the purge.” Already, members of the Queer Collective and other InterVarsity insiders say that every day raises new concerns about emotional trauma, unemployment, resignatio…

Smelling the Sacred: Better (Lived) Religion Through Chemistry

By Donovan Schaefer

…?) But the smell of the sacred may go back to something even deeper. In his 1912 book The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Emile Durkheim proposed that religion is made through a collective “effervescence” summoned when people are gathered together in a spirit of excitement, such as the French Revolution or the Australian aboriginal “corroboree” celebration. But what is this effervescence? Durkheim doesn’t know, suggesting only that “[t]he init…

Why ISIS War Would Make Paris Attacks a Success

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…retaliating against Islamist extremist terror attacks that killed at least 129 people in Paris.” When I heard that the French government had identified ISIS as the group behind the horrible multiple attacks on Paris that have left over 120 dead and hundreds wounded, I wondered why. Why would this attack be useful to ISIS? After all, it is an organization that’s primarily focused on Syria and Iraq. And they’ve been having enough trouble just maint…

Gaza Reading [UPDATED]

By Sarah Posner

…arable problem in the south may recede—until the next bout.” In Foreign Affairs, Daniel Byman questions the strategic gamble Israel has embarked on: “Israel’s latest campaign in Gaza, which began on Wednesday with the killing of Hamas’ military commander, Ahmed Jabari, and air strikes on the group’s long-range rocket launchers, is a gamble — and one that Israel might lose.” Gershon Baskin, who was negotiating a cease fire with Ahmed Jabari before…

No Such Thing as a Great 9/11 Work of Art

By Hussein Rashid

…. She is known in the comics world for her graphic novel Cairo, her series Air, and for penning several issues of Superman. Unlike Naif al-Mutawa’s wonderful series The 99, her characters were set in fantastical worlds where their religious identification was not ambiguous, but were also not necessarily essential to the story. In other words, her characters were people who happened to be Muslim, normalizing Muslim presence in American popular cult…

Desert Prophet of Salvation Mountain Wants to Share his Life Story

By Lauri Lebo

…of unincorporated land in a stretch of desert where temperatures can exceed 115 degrees in the summer. (It reached 113 degrees when I was there, which I was told was “cooling off.”) About 150 people, unable for whatever reason to get by in a more conventional society, live there year-round in campers, shacks and tents, getting by off the electrical grid with no running water, any kind of septic system or air conditioning. Here, at the entrance to…

Why Running Left and Governing Right Never Works

By Peter Laarman

…imes financial reporter Binyamin Appelbaum was the featured guest on Fresh Air last night, and this particular show really was a breath of fresh air. The youthful Binyamin explained exactly how the big banks beat back progressive reform in the 2,300-page bill the President just signed into law. The banks and their army of lobbyists made sure that the timid approach of this Goldman-dominated White House—an approach amounting to “keep the current sy…

Dreaming Beyond the Madman: Reflections on the Revolution in Libya

By Haroon Moghul

…afi has revealed himself to be as cruel as Saddam Hussein. He has used his Air Force and his Navy against his own people. Libyan diplomatic delegations, to their credit, are everywhere turning on Brother Leader, and members of the Air Force and Navy have defected rather than use force. But we don’t really know what is happening on the ground, and it’s hard to see, absent any kind of foreign intervention, where this is going to go. It seems like Qa…

In Wake of Murder in Uganda, LGBT Group Protests Prayer Breakfast

By Kay Steiger

…strations, responded to Sharlet’s interview in his own appearance on Fresh Air, in which he denied the Family’s involvement in Uganda. “My opinion is it’s a terrible bill and shouldn’t be adopted,” Hunter insisted in the interview, “and I believe no one that I know, in America particularly, and my close friends in Uganda, I know of no one who supports it in the Fellowship.” In an exchange, published on Harper’s website, Sharlet and Hunter trade ar…

Dorito & Pepsi Eucharist, Hate-Pastor Smackdown, and Egyptian Muslims Shield Christians

By Michael J. Altman

…otestors within 300 feet of funerals and local “angels” planned to use 8 by 10-foot angel wings to shield mourners from the protest. Even the right-wing “pray for President Obama’s death” Pastor Wiley Drake got so offended by the folks of Westboro Baptist that he called for Christians around the country to pray for the death of WBC leader Fred Phelps. In the end, the WBC agreed not to protest in exchange for air time on various radio programs. So…