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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

…on on religion in terms of belief shows up again in questions related to reflection on the meaning of life, connection with nature, and the value of religion itself. The bias here is plain: believing is the basis of religiosity. Practice matters only insofar as it expresses commitment to belief. This belief-based orientation in the study of religiosity, and the study of religion more generally, obscures what is revealed again and again as a diver…

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

…ion from the Kharkiv Human Rights Group: The LGBT initiative Equality Festival had planned an Equality ‘Quest’ on March 19, as part of various anti-discrimination, pro-tolerance events over the weekend. The quest was to go around places linked with ideals of equality and freedom within the city. During the early hours of Saturday morning, the Lviv District Administrative Court passed a ruling banning all events in the area where the Equality Festi…

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

By Frederick Clarkson

…ar crimes and genocide, are continuing what they began in the 1985-2002 conflict and genocide. The government began to isolate us from the outside world by cutting off power and cell phone towers. One hundred people sought refuge in the town’s Catholic church. They were forced out with tear gas. Some were hauled away by security forces. Some were killed, among them a priest, an attorney, aid workers, and people targeted because of their ethnicity…

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

By Kristin Rawls

…lesbian bar in which a couple came up to me and said, “We’re fiscal conservatives, and we’re evangelical Christians and we’re so glad to be here.” There is so much joy in bringing our gifts to diverse communities, and I’m grateful and honored to be able to watch that every day. Let’s talk a bit about the album. The track, “Fallen,” contains the lyrics: “Even though they say we have fallen/Doesn’t mean that I won’t do it twice.” Was that written i…

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

By Donna Schaper

…ad come to a full stop, even though that was the line for people with reservations. (Reservations? Who knew?) We had gone for the show, not the protest. Being the kind of people who can neither climb poles or stand in long lines, or wait to get busted by the French riot police (they don’t seem to have read Thoreau on civil disobedience) we went across the street to the Petit Palais, where we enjoyed a wonderfully quirky permanent collection (featu…

The Religious Right’s Apocalyptic Visions of an Obama Presidency

By Bill Berkowitz

…s,” this portrait of liberal bogeymen gone Lord of the Flies is, for conservative Christian evangelicals, a bleak one: “Far-left liberals could hold a 6-3 majority on the US Supreme Court. “The nation’s highest court could rule same-sex ‘marriage’ is a constitutional right—in all 50 states. “Preaching from the Bible could be banned from radio and television. “States may not be able to restrict abortion, and taxpayers could be forced to fund aborti…

It’s Not Raining Eligible Muslim Men

By Shabana Mir

…I have agonized, along with my friends, about the disproportionately large numbers of such women and the much lower numbers of truly eligible Muslim men. Many friends have wondered if “he” is out there at all. Many friends have asked me if I can introduce them to someone, and friends have asked me if I can introduce their friends to someone. I empty my pockets helplessly; there are few that I’d introduce to them with confidence. The “good ones” ar…

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

By Michael J. Iafrate

…sions and health care packages, and the ongoing scourge of mountaintop removal mining that devastates the land, terrorizes nearby communities, and contaminates the water of anyone downstream? And why did Bishop Bransfield publicly downplay the relevance of Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato si’ for West Virginia, citing in his comments the importance of coal to the state’s economy? When asked these questions, diocesan officials such as Fr. Brian O’D…

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

By Rob Shryock

…Providence’s student body has reacted with outrage. On Thursday, students flooded Providence College’s ’64 center for an open-forum/protest called “Fighting for Academic Freedom.” At the meeting, a number of LGBT students made clear that they were profoundly upset by the administration’s decision. One student noted that the college’s actions had “further alienated the LGBT community”; that Lena’s decision implied that LGBT people were not “creat…