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Are All Religious Experiences Reducible to 16 Desires?

By Andrew Aghapour

…mental desire behind religion, Reiss argues, there are sixteen of them. According to Reiss, all humans have the following innate desires: – Acceptance: the desire for positive self-regard – Curiosity: the desire for understanding – Eating: the desire for food – Family: the desire to raise children and spend time with siblings – Honor: the desire for upright character – Idealism: the desire for social justice – Independence: the desire for self-rel…

Gay, Christian, Pagan, Artist: How Matt Morris Defies the Borders of Spiritual Identity

By Jesse James DeConto

…ediacy of God. Some people have to construct very careful sacred spaces in order to enter into worship. They do this in order to create a certain environment to approach the holy. Pagans do that. Christians do that. For other people, there’s never a space where God is not present. There’s never not a space where the holy is accessible. For those people, it might seem like everything can become worship, everything is prayer. It’s just different per…

Why It’s Heresy to Read the Bible Literally: An Interview with John Shelby Spong

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…ntroversial. I don’t like being controversial. I get abused a lot in mail, phone calls and that sort of thing. I don’t enjoy that. But, if you are controversial in the public arena, the people who have given up on Christianity say, “My God, there must be something more to this story than I realized.” So, being controversial is my doorway to the generation of my own children. “The primary issue in the Christian church today is to get away from orig…

United Methodists Elect 1st Gay Bishop; Canadian Anglicans OK Same-Sex Marriage

By Peter Montgomery

…one vote that was apparently not counted because it was counted in the lay order. The error was discovered after delegates requested a detailed hard copy of the electronic voting records. Hiltz then declared the resolution in favour of same-sex marriage had passed. “That is our reality,” Hiltz told stunned delegates. “That the motion is in fact carried in all three orders.” The resolution must be affirmed at the next synod in 2019 before it goes i…

Fear, Guns, and the (Unwinnable) War Against Death: A Letter to My Fellow Americans

By Beatrice Marovich

…shooting. I spent a full hour, numb with terror, refreshing the news on my phone and waiting to be reassured that the violence had been contained. The (unarmed) door guards at the school’s drop-off line know my daughter’s tricks; how she likes to stall and take her sweet time. And I watch her dance away into the little building where she builds her dreams and plays with her friends every day. I can hold it together until I drive away, but then it…

Accused of Anti-Semitism, Trump Aide Makes Ancestry Appeal

By Michael Schulson

…maternal grandmother. Schmitz is clearly trying to evoke this tradition in order to claim that there’s no way he’s an anti-Semite. And maybe he’s not! But there are reasons to find this appeal to ancestry more than a little off-putting. First of all, it ignores an enormous, ongoing internecine throwdown taking place over what it means to be “ethnically Jewish” (if I may quote Schmitz). Orthodox Jews and the Conservative Jewish movement stand by ma…

Book Bannings Are Bad Enough, But Where Those Involved Are Considered Demonic, the Stakes Could Get Much Higher

By Frederick Clarkson

…aim to take control of what they call the “Seven Mountains” of society in order to achieve Christian dominion. These metaphorical mountains are religion, family, government, business, education, arts & entertainment and media. NAR figures prominently in book bannings across the country. In one recent example, Patriot Mobile—a NAR 7 Mountains Dominionism-inspired phone company in Texas—bankrolled the campaigns of 11 candidates for school board in…

But ‘Natural’ is Better, No? ‘How Faith in Nature’s Goodness Leads to Harmful Fads, Unjust Laws, and Flawed Science’

By Andrew Aghapour

…car, which is not its native environment) might be very expensive and unaffordable to people. There’s a real reluctance to own these kinds of tradeoffs, but I think it’s incredibly important with food to realize that perhaps what’s best for the world is not best for our individual health, or perhaps the thing that tastes best is not the most natural thing or the most beautiful thing. I actually found that the people who understand [this] most are…

Culture Wars Masquerading as Social Science: New Survey Illustrates Evangelicals’ Election Year Anxieties

By Chrissy Stroop

…ich will naturally lead to orthodox social conservative politics. Thus, according to Barna, evangelicals have a responsibility to make sure their children develop the proper worldview from very early childhood. Lamenting that “Most people will die believing what they believe at age 13,” Barna said, striking a panicked tone similar to Ligonier’s write-up of its State of Theology Survey, “It’s got to come from the family, as well as the church. But…

For Clergy Who Ministered Through the AIDS Crisis Covid is Both Eerily Familiar and Puzzlingly Different

By Lynne Gerber

…from ministry, locked down at home, and “trying to be of service over the phone and zoom” to people in his church facing another pandemic. Pieters is part of a unique cohort for whom the current pandemic is both eerily familiar and puzzlingly different. LGBT Christian clergy who ministered in queer communities in the 1980s and 90s are engaging Covid-19 using some lessons learned from AIDS ministry in the years before treatment. They’re also grapp…