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The Wrong Emperor: Why Ralph Reed’s New Pro-Trump Book Distorts the Bible to Cast the President as Tiberius

By Tony Keddie

Ralph Reed’s new book, For God and Country: The Christian Case for Trump (published by Simon & Schuster in March 2020), doesn’t devote much energy to defending Trump’s moral character or articulating his role as an instrument chosen by God to save Christians. Instead, the notorious conservative lobbyist, evangelical apologist, and founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition doubles down on the toxic argument that Trump is an unlikely ally in the C…

Who’s Afraid of Sacred Soccer?

By Gary Laderman

…uddhists are doing that—nor is it only spirituality vaguely conceptualized—New Agers with crystals, meditation retreats for the professional class. Instead, both old and new media have lit up the religious landscape, illuminating what is still an unconventional, and nebulous, but certainly increasingly capacious, understanding of the sacred in everyday life. Rock and roll can be religious, according to The Hold Steady; a recent Los Angeles Times a…

A Reforming Tradition Struggles With Change

By Brent Hege

…p called Lutheran CORE (formerly Coalition for Reform, now Coalition for Renewal) met in assembly in September of 2009 to discuss the possibility of forming a new Lutheran church body in North America. Those discussions resulted in the announcement of the North American Lutheran Church (NALC), which will include disaffected “confessional” Lutherans from the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Lutheran CORE will remain as a network for dissenting Lu…

The Good Liberal Fear of a Yoga Planet

By Jay Michaelson

…part. Don’t ever give in to—dare I say it—opening your heart. The presumed New York Times reader is similar, I think: basically secular, basically liberal, and basically intellectual. S/he probably drinks a lot of coffee, spends a good deal of money on food and clothing, and is, in essence, a good person. But anything New Agey or touchy-feely—in fact, anything more demanding than whining about neuroses on the couch of a ritzy psychotherapist—well,…

Are Social Issues Non-Issues?

By Jay Michaelson

…o take but two bellwether issues. If the swing voters in the swing states knew about these stances, they’d be less likely to vote for Romney, even though he won the first debate in convincing, alpha-dog style. So it’s obviously in Romney’s interest to leave that stuff for the base and hush it up when it comes to winning over the middle. But that partisan preference doesn’t explain why the president never mentioned social or religious issues, and w…

Religious Resistance to Bolivian Gender Law; US Religious Right Celebrates Court OK For Romanian Marriage Initiative; Will LGBTs Be Banned from Indonesian TV?; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ab.” Isle of Man: Marriage equality now in effect As of Friday, July 22, a new law allows same-sex couples to legally marry or choose a civil partnership. The Guardian’s Helen Pidd reports: Church of England ministers do not have to marry gay couples under the new law. The island’s bishop, who sits in the Manx parliament’s upper chamber, was one of a handful of representatives to oppose equal marriage… [Chief Minister Allan] Bell was one of a numb…

Religious Freedom Battle Is Far From Over: Here’s What to Look for in 2019

By Patrick Hornbeck

…, when a federal judge in Wisconsin found the relevant portions of the tax code to be unconstitutional, but the three judges on the appellate panel did not tip their hand, although they showed few outward signs that they agreed. The regulation at issue is more than sixty years old, enacted in the 1950s to ensure that ministers at churches who could not afford to provide them with housing could nevertheless benefit from the same tax breaks as minis…

We Would Be Wise to Pay Attention to Trump’s Apocalyptic QAnon Posting Spree

By Thomas Lecaque

…fic antisemites and racists that we start to shut down when presented with new ones. QAnon, for example, has become so deeply ingrained in far-right discourse—and, more disturbingly, in conventional Republican rhetoric—that we tend to just move past it. Not because the damage is healed: as Jesselynn Cook details in her new book, The Quiet Damage, QAnon has ripped apart families and left lasting scars. And not because, post-Q, the beliefs have gone…

Finding Nonreligious Happiness at the RNC

By Peter Montgomery

…ooklet’s content isn’t religious: This may be the first nonreligious moral code based wholly on common sense. It was written by L. Ron Hubbard as an individual work and it not part of any religious doctrine. Any reprinting or individual distribution of it does not infer connection with or sponsorship of any religious organization. It is therefore admissible for government departments and employees to distribute it as a nonreligious activity. (Repr…

Still Trying to Get Creationism into Science Classes

By Lauri Lebo

…attacked by Rush Limbaugh on his radio show. “It’s like being gummed by a newt. It doesn’t actually hurt but it leaves you with slimy stuff on your ankle.” Which pretty much sums up my response to David Klinghoffer’s post, “Dear Lauri Lebo, Please Help Me Understand Your Conspiracy Theory,” in which he impugns both my intelligence and my understanding of the controversies I write about. But then it occurred to me that next month marks the five-ye…