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War on Christmas Affirmed by Southern Baptist Convention

By Mark Gstohl

…offensive resolutions. I’ve done this since 1997 when I was awakened by a phone call from a Lutheran friend that began, “What’s with you Southern Baptists and Mickey Mouse?” I was unaware that the messengers voted on a resolution to boycott Disney because of its policies toward homosexuals. One resolution approved by the messengers this year that may not be so widely publicized is a resolution “On Affirming the Use of the Term ‘Christmas’ in Publ…

A Religious History of American Neuroscience

By Leigh Eric Schmidt

…illusion or, conversely, to manifest its reality. Brain imaging techniques participate in this larger historical framing of technology in those terms. Neurotheology, in other words, is one more species of what we might call techno-theologizing—a phenomenon that has flourished in Western culture, especially since the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Take examples from both sides. The magic lantern was widely used by the end of the eighteenth c…

Aliens To Arrive in Alabama Today!

By Ben Brazil

…ds to Spiritualism, New Thought, and New Age mysticism, Goodchild seems to participate in the eclectic, combinative spirituality typical of UFO faith; Wojcik notes that UFO believers draw on sources as diverse as theosophy, Asian religions, science fiction, Scientology, Mormonism and Christianity. Certainly, the October 14 prophecy seems to have resonated with the broader UFO community. A Google search for “Blossom Goodchild” yielded 50,200 hits a…

Friending Pope Benedict on Facebook?

By Kate Childs Graham

In April 2005, just after the death of Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict sent the following text message to Italian mobile phone users: “Let us go forth in the joy of the risen Lord and trusting in his permanent help.” JPII had been texting Italians with a “thought of the day” while he was still alive, so Benedict was simply carrying on this tradition. Pope Benedict has more recently used text messaging to communicate with attendees throughout thi…

A Color-Blind America? Don’t Fall For The Okey-Doke

By LeRhonda S. Manigault-Bryant

…Elected President” and felt the pandemonium of celebration around me. The palpable energy that had until that moment felt like an undercurrent became a gushing waterfall, some of which seemed to be making its way through to my phone. I received a swarm of text messages and emails from different people I know across the country, arriving almost simultaneously: This is the best moment in my lifetime, politically. Shout out to the ancestors who r re…

Battling for the Soul of the Democratic Party

By Sarah Posner

…r became the nonprofit Faith in Public Life (FIPL). With former Democratic party staffer Katie Paris leading its media outreach, FIPL is in the forefront of those shaping the media narrative about the new religious landscape: religious voters are no longer shackled to a “narrow agenda” of abortion and gay marriage, and are voting on a “broader agenda,” including poverty, the environment, and global HIV/AIDS. The Take Back America conference, the a…

An Immigrant’s Tale: The Pull of the Homeland

By Shabana Mir

…abi mosque (I swear I’ve seen this happen, and have been one of those to depart in tears). When we depart from the mosque after prayers, we have taught ourselves to keep our remembrances and invocations within the “heart” instead of whispering or chanting them aloud. We taught ourselves to cork up the bottle of intoxication that we could quaff on Fridays, or during and after prayer-times. I learned that on Fridays I did not have the leisure to wal…

Religion at Decade’s End

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…cate, resulting in the equally unexpected elevation of John Paul II to the papacy, the first non-Italian pope to be so elevated since the middle of sixteenth century. John Paul II quickly established himself, again somewhat surprisingly, as a man of unusual charismatic and media talents, but also as a pope with some jarring and nearly reactionary theological attitudes. It is worth reflecting on the symbolic significance of the fact that all three…

‘Biblical’ Disaster in Haiti: Pat Robertson and the Curse of Unyielding Ignorance

By Matt Recla

…ly likes making money. Lots of money. According to British journalist Greg Palast, Pat has a net worth estimated at between $200 million and $1 billion, a fortunate he amassed through moneymaking ventures including African gold and diamond mines, the Kalo-Vita vitamin pyramid scheme, the Bank of Scotland, the Family Channel, and the Ice Capades, as well as Age-Defying shakes, antioxidants, and protein pancakes. So is Pat guilty of not practicing w…

Angry Voters, Right-Wing Populism, & Racial Violence: People of Faith Can Help Break the Linkages

By Chip Berlet

…movements appear periodically throughout US history during times when the participants feel they are being “displaced” and losing political, social, or economic power. Scholars like Margaret Canovan, Martin Durham, Kathleen Blee, Michael Kazin, and Rory McVeigh have studied this process extensively. Based on what we saw in the 1990s, Matthew N. Lyons and I wrote a book about the history of right-wing populism in the United States. We found that r…