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Can You Make a Comedy About UFO Cult Mass Suicide?

By Joseph Laycock

…fined as a vagrant. So members always carried five dollars and money for a phone call. Benjamin Zeller, author of Heaven’s Gate: America’s UFO Religion, has also noted that Heaven’s Gate members engaged in a lot of self-deprecating humor because they were aware that mainstream society perceived them as crazy. This research led Jones to conclude that a comedy about Heaven’s Gate might not be as inappropriate as it sounds. “I could never make a come…

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

By Jesse James DeConto

…he church in our spiritual-but-not-religious age. Do you think that the American church can recover from it? I think it depends on whether the American church decides to live into an identity that affirms the love of God for all people. It’s not like it’s a wound from the past. It’s a wound in the present. Everyone wants live into Easter, but no one wants to be on Good Friday. Everyone wants to live in Resurrection, but no one wants to recognize t…

Racial Justice Will Be Top Priority for New Prez of the United Church of Christ

By Frederick Clarkson

…t Americans to oppose slavery. By 1785 the church had ordained the first African-American protestant minister; in 1853 ordained the first woman as clergy since New Testament times; and in 1972 ordained the first openly gay person. So it was no surprise that when marriage equality overcame the last legal hurdle in Arizona, Dorhauer found himself standing in that tradition with other progressive clergy outside the Maricopa County Courthouse holding…

“What Kind of Islam Is That?”: Talking With Refugees From ISIS

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…uld not be harmed as long as they gave them all their money and their cell phones. In other villages, they heard, an agreement to convert to Islam and a payment of $7 per month would allow them to survive. But initially they were not given those options. Moreover, his wife was taunted for wearing a Western-style dress, as many Christian women do, so she could not venture outside. They also kept their daughters hidden, fearing they would be capture…

The Only Religion Question Reporters and Debate Moderators Should Ask Presidential Candidates (Kim Davis Edition)

By Sarah Posner

…for shying away from hot-button religious culture war battles, “visited by phone” with Rowan County, Kentucky court clerk Kim Davis yesterday, according to a statement issued by his campaign. “I let her know how proud I am of her for not abandoning her religious convictions and standing strong for religious liberty,” the former pastor, Arkansas governor, and now two-time presidential candidate said in a statement. Arguing that “the Supreme Court c…

The Fragility of Our Reality: A Conversation with the Brain Behind PBS Miniseries on Neuroscience

By Michael Schulson

…, to a large extent, unmapped: the terra incognita in our skulls. Over the phone, Eagleman spoke with The Cubit about traumatic brain injuries, the idea of possibilianism, and the language we use to describe our brains. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. In The Brain, you do a good job of depicting the fragility of our experience of reality. Am I right to be a little scared by this instability? [Laughs] Well, you know, it’s one…

The Passion of Katniss: How the Hunger Games Confronts the Trauma of Violence

By Michael Schulson

…ut the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq have also been the first major American wars during which the country had an established, stable psychological diagnosis for combat stress. For the first time, there’s a highly-visible, medically-legible pool of veterans whose experiences of war diverge radically from anything resembling a kill-and-banter escapade. The effects of traumatic stress have been recognized for a long time–perhaps millennia–and, i…

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

By Peter Montgomery

…all Lesbianism, Gayism, Bisexualism and Transgender (LGBT). Fortunately, Africa is still pretty much safer. Banking on lessons from the Western democracies, African leaders must make sure they don’t let their countries get to the point of no return by upholding the so called gay rights movements in their territories. Israel: Activists protest parade shift due to religious sensitivities, threat of violence LGBT activists in Be’er Sheva turned what…

Refusing Religion, Claiming the Future: A Roundtable Discussion on “The Nones Are Alright”

By Peter Laarman

…any kind of alternative way of doing church or being church for younger African Americans. Is it your impression that black millennials, and young activists in particular, are doing their own version of DIY church or are they drawing their spiritual nourishment in ways that have nothing to do with church in any form? There’s certainly a historical precedent for young justice activists finding it impossible to remain inside quiescent religious ins…

Trump, Islamophobia, and the Philly Pig’s Head Incident

By David Krueger

…1730s, St. Joseph’s Catholic Church was the only place in British North America where it was legal to hold a public mass. Despite the noble principles of the city’s founder, Philadelphia often struggled with religious diversity. In the 1830s and 40s, Irish Catholics poured into Philadelphia and other American cities. (Patricia Miller just wrote about the anti-Catholic backlash that occurred in Baltimore in the 1830s here on RD.) Prominent civic le…