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Normalization is Control: Telling Stories to Survive

By Mariam Durrani

…for myself, my family, and colleagues. So I’ve been trying to draft a short 800-word article for Religion Dispatches, as my attempt to make sense of this current moment, not because I chose this as an anthropological project, but here I am. Here I am listening to Trump’s transition team drop words like Muslim registry or that there is a precedent for internment camps in American history. The news that the KKK has been dropping their newsletter off…

Did the Pope Embrace the Prosperity Gospel?

By Sarah Posner

…e years, including: • Kenneth Copeland and his wife Gloria live in a 20,000-square-foot lake-front mansion near Fort Worth, TX. They regularly fly one or the other of their two expensive jets and other airplanes around the world, including regular trips to their multi-million chalet-style mansion in Steamboat Springs, Colo. • Tony Palmer, a former employee of Copeland, is ordained with the Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches (CEEC), a smal…

Play to Extinction: Religious Groups Unite Against Predatory Gambling

By Frederick Clarkson

…ett, associate director of the Massachusetts Council of Churches (a century-old coalition of 1700 Protestant and Orthodox churches) says that their priority has shifted from an emphasis on gambling as a matter of personal responsibility, to confronting the issue as a matter of good government. “State-sponsored gambling,” she says, “is not an ethical way to raise revenue, because it hurts the poorest and the most vulnerable.” Clergy, she says, unde…

Are Atheists Taking 1st Amendment Suits Too Far?

By Gordon Haber

…it also helps wealthy pastors line their own pockets. For example, between 1993 and 1995,Saddleback Church paid Rick Warren a housing allowance of around $80,000 per year, which (probably not coincidentally) was most of his salary. The IRS guideline, however, was that clergy can only claim “fair market value” of the home, and the rental value of the house in question was $60,000 a year. The IRS wanted Warren to cough up the taxes on the differenc…

What Coverage of a Fatal Orthodox Baptism Reveals About Western Media

By Katherine Kelaidis

…arly those who rejected the baptism of infants, eventually returned to full-immersion baptism. It’s the medieval, pre-Reformation context that’s important here, however. Because like many ancient liturgical practices retained in the East, full-immersion baptism became an important marker of Eastern Christian identity—particularly as increasingly numbers of Eastern Christians became the simultaneous targets of Western crusaders and Islamic conquero…

Thoreau’s Ferocious Critique of Philanthropy Does Not Make Him “Selfish”

By Alda Balthrop-Lewis

…abwe, just as overlooked and beleaguered… Big companies have always sought cheaper labor, moving from North to South in the United States, looking for the hungriest, the most desperate, the least organized, the most exploitable. Press coverage of conditions in Apple’s factories in China has been anything but glowing. Yet when Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, says he’ll give his personal wealth to charities of his choice (many of them in Silicon Valley), he…

Norway Massacre Suspect Anders Behring Breivik, Hitler, & the Jerusalem Post Editorial

By Sarah Posner

…himself more difficult, because the Holocaust unleashed “the greatest anti-nationalist and anti-European propaganda campaign the world has ever seen.” As a result, “people like myself, and other cultural conservative leaders of today, are still suffering under this propaganda campaign because of that one man.” Breivik further blames Hitler for failing to “liberate Jerusalem” from “Islamic occupation” and deporting European Jews to Israel. Instead…

Boy Scout “Perversion Files” Raise Questions about Abuse in Mormon Contexts

By Joanna Brooks

…some victims and accusers. In 1995, the Church established stronger guidelines and new protocols for reporting abuse, including a 1-800 number for local clergy. …

US Archbishop and Vatican-Appointed “Overseer” Attends Annual Meeting of Women Religious

By Emily Baxter

…embly, the sisters officially called for gun control legislation and signed 800 postcards demanding Congress members to pass immigration reform. As LCWR past-president, Sr. Pat Farrell said to the Assembly, “Expressing what we really think and feel, with transparency and vulnerability, is for the brave of heart. It is, however, what we are being asked to do in our current conflict. All of a sudden the world is looking to us.” Like this story? You…

Reading Beinart and Lerner as Gaza Burns

By Ira Chernus

…years. Before their change of heart, most weren’t even aware of the decades-old Jewish-American peace movement, so they can only compare the situation now with what it was a few years ago when they joined the effort for peace with such high hopes. Naturally they are disheartened. But for those of us who have been involved in this work for decades, the huge increase in our numbers in recent years is sufficient cause for optimism—not necessarily abo…