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Holey Holey Holey: The Problem with a New Study Valuing Religion at $1.2 Trillion Per Year

By Michael Schulson

…f the total revenue of American religious congregations. To get that final number, the Grims took one estimate of the total number of congregations in America (344,894) and multiplied it by another estimate of the average revenue of each ($242,910). Depending on how you look at it, $378 billion is a lot of money, or it’s not very much money at all. It’s more than the net worth of Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Warren Buffet, combined…

Does Record Number of Religious “Nones” Mean Decline of Religiosity?

By Elizabeth Drescher

…an religiosity—about religion as it is lived in the United States today? A number of what I would see as problems in the Pew report suggest to me that our growing fixation with religion-by-the-numbers may be distracting us from richer, more nuanced understandings of American religious practice. Wanted: A Community that Doesn’t Share My Beliefs and Values Take the demographic category of “Nones” itself. The Pew report notes the difficulty with sur…

Malawi Catholic Bishops Call For Enforcement of Sodomy Law; Ukrainian Thugs Disrupt Equality Festival Opposed by Orthodox Church; Indonesian Islamists Continue Rhetorical War on LGBTs; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ng custody dispute between them and the Thai woman who acted as a surrogate, but “who decided she wanted to keep the child when she found out they were gay,” according to AP. According to the story, the woman who carried the child was not the egg donor. …

Crisis in Sudan: ‘If the World Stands Idly By This Time, They Will Bring Genocide’

By Frederick Clarkson

…intelligence are spread to capture every Nuba that tries to flee outside Kordofan borders. They are arresting Nuba who are in the army, police, and any other organized forces. “Serious atrocities are being witnessed between Kadugli and Dilling. Nuba people are being dragged and killed instantly from lorries trying to ferry them northward for safety. Unnecessary checkpoints are put to trap the Nuba fleeing the violence from Kadugli and Dilling. Th…

A Matter of the Heart: Talking to Gay Christian Rocker Jennifer Knapp

By Kristin Rawls

…tist who fits their label. They can’t serve me in the way that I need a record company to serve me, and I can’t serve their record label and brand the way I would like to serve their record label and brand. I was 22 or 23 when I first signed with Gotee. I knew that they were going to grow with me. And we were going to be a kind of family, and they really held up their end of that. I can’t say enough about the way they’ve honored this process. Ev…

Report from Paris During COP21: Let Us Not Commit Global Suicide

By Donna Schaper

…et. The Kyoto Protocol, which commits industrialized countries to internationally binding emission reduction targets, was the first climate treaty to emerge from this process. It was passed at COP3 in December 1997 at Kyoto, Japan and came into force in February 2005 when a sufficient number of developed countries signed the agreement; the United States did not, hampering negotiations for the next decade. A successor agreement, involving all count…

The Religious Right’s Apocalyptic Visions of an Obama Presidency

By Bill Berkowitz

…er be licensed to deliver babies at hospitals in any state”; overall, “the number of abortions have increased dramatically.” Everywhere in America, men, women and children are likely to be confronted by, or exposed to, pornography. When the Federal Communications Commission lifted all “restrictions on obscene speech or visual content in radio and television broadcasts,” it freed television programmers to show “explicit portrayals of sexual acts” a…

It’s Not Raining Eligible Muslim Men

By Shabana Mir

…. Single women who remained single were not unknown, but were not large in number and remained an anomaly. Wealthy and middle-class or educated single women could hold their own. In the diaspora, professional single women, outside of a traditional Muslim context, will inevitably change the face of the community. Traditional, conservative Muslims may have much to fear from these changes, but they must be faced. Growing numbers of Muslim women are m…

Dirty Money in the Appalachian Church: Six Years After Deadly Coal Mine Disaster, Where Are We Now?

By Michael J. Iafrate

…ose who regularly violate labor and environmental standards. An increasing number of Catholic universities and religious orders believe that industries with a pernicious refusal to adhere to such standards would qualify for divestment. Why are Catholic dioceses not leading by example, especially given these recent comments from Pope Francis? [W]e often choose to tread the wrong paths in search of a justification, justice, and peace…. I think of so…

Students at Conservative Catholic College Speak After Sudden Cancellation of Pro-Gay Speaker

By Rob Shryock

…llege they call ‘home’ would act this way.” When I spoke to Corvino on the phone Tuesday, he seemed to be wrestling with the same concerns, noting that the school’s sudden cancellation of his event sent the message that the presence of openly gay folks was like “a virus that might infect the students if they’re not protected.” Corvino reflected this same concern in a blog post Wednesday, It’s difficult not to feel as if the Providence College admi…