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For Clergy Who Ministered Through the AIDS Crisis Covid is Both Eerily Familiar and Puzzlingly Different

By Lynne Gerber

…ty person. It’s [coming to] church that can make church people sick. Which flips the script.” And flips the pastoral task. Ministry in LGBTQ communities provided at least two tools that have been useful in that new task. One is spiritual grounding in what Flunder calls a “consistent ethics of self care.” “[W]e talked about barriers and condoms back in the day, and safe sex practices. I now talk about social distancing and masks. And for me it’s si…

Sean Feucht’s New Year’s Rockin’ Superspreader Revival is a ‘Tepid and Meager’ Effort at Racial Reconciliation

By Isaiah Murtaugh

…rly ministry included barnstorming public healings during the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. Some experts, though, aren’t convinced by the comparison. “He seems like an opportunist,” said Diane Winston, a religion and media professor at the University of Southern California, noting that while McPherson and Seymour were unknown preachers who ground their way to outsized cultural influence, “[Feucht] rode [here] on the coattails of the church closing be…

With Release of Pentagon Report, UFO Narrative Belief System is Suddenly Supported by Military Witness Testimonies

By Diana Pasulka

…assified version of the report, giving him inside information that would influence the interpretations of any statements he would make about UAP phenomena. Scholars of religion are among those who understand the importance of witness testimonies in the formation of religions. Raelism and The Nation of Islam, for example, were formed from the UFO/UAP testimonies of their founders. A cursory review of UAP literature, both primary sources by witnesse…

How Do We Break the Cycle of Religious Violence in South Asia?

By Sunita Viswanath

…e of religious violence. In October, Muslim extremist mobs in Bangladesh inflicted serious violence against the country’s Hindu minority during its most important festival, Durga Puja. The trigger? A Facebook post showing the Qur’an being placed on an image of a Hindu deity. To some Muslims, this offensive post justified attacks on Hindu shops, temples, and homes across Bangladesh. The violence didn’t stop here, though. In the neighboring Indian s…

Whose House? Their House: Just Who Was Held Accountable for the 1/6 Insurrection is Telling

By Susannah Crockford

…so far. During sentencing, the prosecution called Jake Angeli the “literal flagbearer” for the insurrectionists because he carried a spear with an American flag tied to it. Wearing a horned fur hat and no shirt, he screamed through a bullhorn encouraging people to fight against the elites “drinking our blood, eating our babies.” He was among the first 30 people to enter the Capitol building. His defense lawyer emphasized his navy service, and his…

Scolding Those Who Choose Pets But No Children Pope Misses the Rainforest for the Trees

By Sarah A. Bowen

…t have children, and lives with her husband and a couple of cats, I was conflicted. Responding to people’s questions wasn’t simple. Indeed, through his remarks, Pope Francis offered us a chance for reflection on the highly complex topic of interspecies living. I’ve thought about these concerns at length. And with all respect to the pope, in a time of climate crisis, economic pressure, war, poverty, and other anthropogenic violence, some of us lack…

We Declare You Restored: How Christian ‘Forgiveness’ is Deployed to Enable Abuse and Corruption

By Greg Carey

…they described as an “intentional and an intense season of transparency, reflection and restoration.” Also last month, Auburn University hired Hugh Freeze as head coach of its football program. In 2017 the University of Mississippi forced Freeze to resign as head coach after discovering he’d been using his school-issued cell phone to call an escort service. Freeze was hired the following year by Liberty University, where he coached until he left f…

The Forgotten Nones: The High Cost of Fleeing Fundamentalist Religion

By Andreea Nica

…home, despite traveling in the region for Church events, and has only briefly met my partner of 5 years once. Ted: …you have to remind yourself that there is nothing wrong with you, if they reject who you are, because it will make you question yourself, but there are people out there who will care about you, and build you up. While more and more people are leaving religion, we still don’t know much about individuals who leave fundamentalist, stri…

How an Ancient Story of Renegade Rabbis Caught With Black Market Technology Can Help Us Navigate ChatGPT’s Apocalyptic Aura

By Sara Tillinger Wolkenfeld

…ionships between individuals, but is more easily disseminated to a greater number of people. We experience AI as a crisis because, like the rabbis of the Talmud, we actually have conflicting needs and desires. We crave the efficiency of AI because it can save time and effort, helping us write emails, make phone calls, and recall and summarize information. At the same time, we’re seeking human connection when we do reach out, and AI fails to provid…

Fear, Guns, and the (Unwinnable) War Against Death: A Letter to My Fellow Americans

By Beatrice Marovich

…shooting. I spent a full hour, numb with terror, refreshing the news on my phone and waiting to be reassured that the violence had been contained. The (unarmed) door guards at the school’s drop-off line know my daughter’s tricks; how she likes to stall and take her sweet time. And I watch her dance away into the little building where she builds her dreams and plays with her friends every day. I can hold it together until I drive away, but then it…