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With Methodist LGBTQ Vote and GOP Support for Trump, White Protestantism Has Hit Bottom

By Peter Laarman

…ose reading of Scripture is cramped, at best. Seen in this context, it’s a cheap dodge for liberals within the UMC to blame churches and delegates from the Global South for the vote to retain (and even heighten) the denomination’s ban on all things queer. Yes, the UMC does have a much heavier Global South representation in its governance than any of the other “sisters”; fully 41% of the delegates in St. Louis represented churches outside of the Un…

Can I Get Some Birth Control Pills With That Slushie?: Unpacking the Contraceptive Mandate Rollback

By Sunnivie Brydum

…ecially severe because funding for the contraceptive safety-net provider, Planned Parenthood, is also under attack. But the biggest effect is likely to be felt on access to the “LARCs” (long-acting reversible contraceptives) like IUDs and implants, since they are the most expensive. The insertion of an IUD costs about $1,000, and it’s no coincidence that the use of these methods has increased steadily since the contraceptive mandate was put in eff…

This is Not a Religion Column: Christian Candidate Quiz Bowl

By Jeff Sharlet

…ing that wall. All express comfort with the many faith-based offices Bush planted throughout the federal government. All offer their faith as a credential for election. All right then; let’s play by their rules.Let’s take their faith seriously, as seriously as we take their foreign policy platforms and their health care plans. Let’s ask the toughest questions we can. Not, “Is Obama secretly a Muslim?”—that’s a stupid question. Rather, let’s quiz M…

Playing Hooky: Will Boycott of Catholic Church Spur Reform?

By Nathan Schneider

…l that divides us, whatever it is. The bread and wine we use is materially cheap and unsatisfying; what we experience in them is supposed to come from a wealth beyond. In the presence of God, and among people of different races, classes, and opinions, the mass should nourish us in our common humanity. So whom exactly is one harming by boycotting, by staying home in solitary prayer? The earthly Church might miss your money in the collection—that’s…

Of Zionism and Anti-Zionism: The Ultra Orthodox and the Settler Movement in Israel

By Shaul Magid

…the “eternal capital of the Jewish people” and referring to “the biblical land of Israel”). And the settlers have begun to use the language of “security”—even though it is not central to their ideology—because it sells in the world, especially to American Jews, who constitute a crucial support group. Second, the Russian immigration in the late 1980s brought a large group of secular Jews (and non-Jews) who, being the victims of anti-Semitism, have…

The Bible is a Good Book, But God Didn’t Write It

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…ictim he could denigrate. He united all the Germans against the Jews. It’s cheap politics, but we still have people who know how to do that. It doesn’t lead to anything but destruction. How can reeducating ourselves about the Bible—and educating the non-religious about the Bible—help us regain the center? One of my hopes for this book is that it will provide a textbook to talk about the Bible in a new way. A local pastor doesn’t have to actually s…

In a Time of Irrational Fear and New Media: The Deadly ‘Dance Plague’ at 500

By Ed Simon

…smaller outbreak of chorea lasciva, decades later in 1564 at Molenbeek in Flanders, as depicted by the Netherlandish painter Pieter Brueghel. A disquieting scene—at the edges of the painting are two peasant women in bonnet, skirt, and apron, held upright by men on either side of them preventing their collapse; mouths agape, faces contorted, clogged feet kicking in a jig. Between the pair are two musicians, nervously looking over their shoulders as…

Changing the Jewish State and the State of Jews: J Street and the Future of Israel

By Mark LeVine

…. My father always folded over one of the small amounts—not enough to seem cheap, since he was a doctor and a “respected member of the community” (as my mother described him), but certainly not the amount some of his friends and colleagues donated. I didn’t understand it then, but I think my father—born of Lithuanian immigrants, child of the Great Depression, a no-nonsense person who disdained ideologies of all types and never had a bad word to sa…

Fear of a Catholic Ghetto

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…ented from holding public office. In the mid-nineteenth century, while the number of Catholic hospitals was growing, the Know Nothing party organized around shared fears that Catholic immigrants from Ireland and Germany were overwhelming the country and acting against white Protestant interests. So the fear of a Catholic ghetto must be understood in light of a real history of Catholics being marginalized during the very time that their health car…

Must We Burn Something to Get Attention?: 50 Years After the Catonsville Nine

By Jason C. Bivins

…olic in its goals and orientations. But while those protests multiplied in number, and continue still, they were drowned out by the hosannas of Ronald Reagan’s America™. If burning children are the price paid for our stock portfolios or geopolitical advantage, well, just keep smiling, America. The whole world is now the land of burning children. So, too, has America’s never-ending war (who are we fighting now, again?) marched on. There is fire in…