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Conservative Catholics Unhappy About New Book on LGBTs and The Church; and More in the Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…its current manifestation in this Russian republic, homophobia everywhere springs from the same place. It is, above all else, about policing what it is to be a man. Being gay is regarded as the most sinful corruption of manliness. The Chechen persecutors may not flinch as they break bones, because they see them as a mortal threat to their own sense of masculinity. That’s why homophobia is so inextricably bound with the subjugation of women. In Ch…

First Baptist Church, Sutherland Springs Texas

Can Government Solve The Evil Of Mass Shootings? A Response to Mollie Hemingway

By Daniel Schultz

Yesterday’s shootings at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas were horrific and especially cruel given the tight-knit nature of a small community. It was more than a little surreal to see Christianity Today report that, what is now the nation’s fourth-worst gun massacre (the shootings in Las Vegas being number one), was “only the 14th mass murder at an American house of worship since 1963.” Only! We have to have rankings of such…

Dems Need More Faith, Episode LXXI: The Beer Caucus Proposal

By Daniel Schultz

…s not even to mention the Dixie and Shiner vote down south, Olympia in the Northwest, Grain Belt in Minnesota, the Sam Adams patriots in the Northeast! Dems are leaving an awful lot of support on the table simply because they’re not willing to chug swill like Scott Walker on a Miller bender. What’s that you say? You say a beer caucus is a terrible idea? You say talking incessantly about alcohol would turn off many non-drinkers? You say plenty of D…

Kavanaugh Hearings Are a Commentary on Mormonism

By Holly Welker

…Kavanaugh’s yearbook. So Mormonism is not exactly the first religion that springs to mind as a lens through which to view the hearing. Nonetheless, there are several ways in which the hearing was a commentary on Mormonism. Mormons are over-represented in the US Senate: they constitute two percent of the overall population of the country, but there are six Mormons—Mike Crapo (R-ID), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Dean Heller (R-NV), Mike L…

Unreleased Religious Freedom Manifesto Isn’t the Culture War Compromise It Hopes to Be

By Frederick Clarkson

…rvative interpretation “This Charter is… distinctively American because it springs from the United States’ commitment to freedom of religion and conscience—a commitment that is, at its heart, covenantal…” [emphases in the original] Once again, it’s not controversial to note that the Framers of the Constitution and the First Amendment sought religious freedom and equality for citizens. It’s unlikely, however, that the Framers either intended or wou…

Betrayed at the Polls, Evangelicals of Color at a Crossroads

By Deborah Jian Lee

…icals of color to change course. But not everyone is leaving. As a growing number of minorities redefine their associations, many have chosen to see white evangelical spaces as their “mission field,” but not their source of spiritual nourishment. These days, SueAnn Shiah just gets angry during church sermons. Still, the Taiwanese American congregant at a conservative, white church in Nashville, remains committed to serving on the church’s racial j…

For LGBTQ People Christian Schools Can Be Traumatizing

By Tris Mamone

…dhood attending evangelical Christian schools in Indianapolis and Colorado Springs. At one school, Heritage Christian School in Indianapolis, a high school science teacher would begin his class everyday by sharing his visions of the apocalypse to his terrified students: “He would go on and on,” Stroop says, “and talk about how much sin is increasing in the world, like ‘Look how friendly we’re becoming toward gay people. This is horrible. Obviously…

Ordered To Remove Her Hijab, Army Sgt. Felt ‘Religiously Raped’

By Paul Rosenberg

…public. While some details of the incident—first reported by the Colorado Springs Independent—are in dispute, these basic facts are not. It wasn’t the first anti-Muslim experience Valdovinos had faced in the Army. She says she’s been called a “terrorist” and made to work with pork for a time. The day after this most recent incident, on the advice of a Muslim chaplain, she emailed Mikey Weinstein, head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation….

‘Enchanted New York’ Offers a Journey Through the City’s Magical History — With Some Mystifying Oversights

By Gordon Haber

…gic runs through the history of New York City like one of those freshwater springs beneath the Manhattan asphalt. Kevin Dann’s new book, Enchanted New York: A Journey Along Broadway Though Manhattan’s Magical Past, looks to bring this idea to a wider audience. The book is a kind of travelogue of the city’s magical places and events, demonstrating that from the American Revolution to the Red Scare of the 1950s, “both witting and unwitting actors ha…

What’s Wrong with Taming the Tongue? ‘Gossip’ and the Limits of Evangelical Abuse Prevention Efforts

By Chrissy Stroop

…tile reaction I got from her and my sister when once, ca. 1994 in Colorado Springs, my in fact not-very-rebellious ca.-fourteen-year-old self answered an almost-certainly-Christian Wal-Mart greeter’s question about what we were there to purchase by quipping, “Boring Christian music.” I could have endangered someone’s salvation, you see! Even now, I roll my eyes at the memory. And for all Shellnutt’s concern over addressing abuse around the concept…