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From Closeted Evangelical to Unapologetic Atheist: A “Faitheist” Manifesto

By Chris Stedman

…t other people wanted to have. But I didn’t think I would, or could, write a book yet. I sketched out ideas here and there, but one discussion really pushed me to give it a serious try. On my last day as a contract employee at Interfaith Youth Core, I had lunch with the organization’s founder, Eboo Patel. As someone who has played a sizable role in informing my perspective on the urgency of constructive interfaith engagement, I wanted to let him k…

‘Catholic Feminist’ Isn’t an Oxymoron, and Other Tales From a Beleaguered Tradition

By Celia Wexler

…er upbringing. At the same time, I was having my own crisis of faith. The papacy of Pope Benedict XVI in particular was trying. He had such a dour world view. He changed the prayers we say at Mass, and made them less personal and more remote. Even American priests did not like the new translation he approved. Benedict’s Vatican also scolded the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents tens of thousands of U.S. nuns, for its “radi…

More Mixed Signals from Pope Francis; Church of England Wrestles with Rifts; Faith Groups Lobby Pro & Con on Irish Referendum; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…. The website Erasing 76 Crimes published a new map of countries with laws against homosexual activity, which includes four fewer countries than it did at the beginning of last year. Responsible for the decline from 82 to 78 are Mozambique, which dropped its anti-gay law as part of a Penal Code overhaul last year; Palau, which decriminalized homosexuality last year; the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus; and São Tomé and Príncipe, which had actu…

Virtual Book Burning and Its Consequences

By Laurie Patton

…s’ threatened Qur’an burning has received a disproportionate amount of media attention, including hand-wringing about whether there should be media attention given to small-time pastors who use such tactics precisely to gain such media attention. And yet the lightning speed at which the threat, the negotiations, and the withdrawal of the threat occurred suggests another level of complexity to the iconography of the book which may be new. There is,…

As Long As There’s Fear, We Aren’t Ready for Atheism: A Conversation with Theologian and Ex-Priest Daniel Maguire

By Alana Massey

…s authors’ limited understanding of religious texts. Armed with a rigorous academic background in religion and the attendant understanding of the gravity of the God-loss, Maguire’s theological and pastoral training sets him apart from fellow atheists. By recognizing the poetic and ethical value of biblical stories in a more nuanced way than those scholars who offer only perfunctory nods to the Bible’s poetry, Maguire’s book offers a gentler welcom…

Lesbian Nuns: Still Immodest After All These Years

By Susan Henking

In 1986, Judith C. Brown published a book about Renaissance Italy called Immodest Acts. It was reviewed in the New York Times, The Nation, and the San Francisco Chronicle, not to mention many scholarly venues. Why? Perhaps because the subtitle of the book was The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy. The notion of the lesbian nun was not a new one. Denis Diderot’s 18th-century anti-Catholic piece entitled La Religieuse (The Nun) certainly p…

A Rationalist’s Ghost Story

By Gary Jansen

…s room was dark except for a small night-light that cast a puddle of light against the wall. As I was in the room, I had a strange feeling that I was being watched. I turned around and saw nothing out of the ordinary. I wrote it off as just my imagination, but after I grabbed the socks and I turned to walk downstairs I felt something, the intensity of which I had never felt before. The only way I can describe it is as if someone had an electric gl…

Are All Religious Experiences Reducible to 16 Desires?

By Andrew Aghapour

…se children and spend time with siblings – Honor: the desire for upright character – Idealism: the desire for social justice – Independence: the desire for self-reliance – Order: the desire for structure – Physical Activity: the desire for muscle exercise – Power: the desire for influence or leadership – Romance: the desire for beauty and sex – Saving: the desire to collect – Social Contact: the desire to have fun with peers – Status: the desire f…

Touched by a Michael Landon: America’s Jewish Angel

By Peter Manseau

…embraced by the mainstream smuggled a minority religion into primetime. In a 1979 episode of Little House on the Prairie (based on the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder) the 19th-century town of Walnut Grove, Minnesota hosts an unlikely guest: an elderly Jewish carpenter whose specialty is building coffins without nails. Among the most popular episodes of the long-running series, “The Craftsman” tells the story of Mr. Singerman, an Easter…

What in the Name of the Crusades are Tennessee Evangelicals Doing in Kurdish Iraq?

By Bill Berkowitz

…istian Zionists and their close relationship with Israel, few are probably aware of the penetration of American evangelicals into Northern Iraq. Shortly after the invasion of Iraq, a number of fundamentalist Christian organizations announced plans to participate in the future rebuilding effort. At the time, the Rev. Franklin Graham indicated that his organization, Samaritan’s Purse, would lead the way. Graham, the son of the Rev. Billy Graham, who…