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Snake-Handlers, False Messiahs, and a Few Great Souls: 14 Who Died in 2014

By Daniel Silliman

…ties of slavery and its aftermath.”He had previously worked to desegregate Texas churches in the 1950s, helped organize the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, and went on a hunger strike in 1995 to protest the Methodist church’s treatment of LGBT people. He nevertheless described himself as a paralyzed soul, unable to effect change. He was 79. Fred Phelps, Sr. Leader of a small but infamous church dedicated to declaring God’s judgement,…

Billy Graham Is Probably Not the Author of His Own “Final Chapter”

By Elesha Coffman

…s archives, anyone can watch Graham preach this sermon to a large crowd in Sacramento, California. In it, Graham described hell as an “unpopular, controversial, and misunderstood subject.” He continued, “I’ve heard some preachers preach on hell as though they were glad there was a hell and glad that people were going there. But I’m not. I don’t like to preach on it. I do it only because I’m commanded in Scripture to preach the word. And it’s again…

Dragged Through the Mud: This Little Church-Backed Support Group for LGBTQ Teens Suffered Bomb Threats, Smears and the Cancellation of its Drag Show

By Chrissy Stroop

…eaking directly to board member Heidi Hall, she continued, “You emailed me today and you asked me, what rights didn’t they have? They just told you. They don’t feel safe because of what has happened.” She then asked very pointedly what the board would do to help the school district’s LGBTQ students feel safe. Tong moved from Sacramento to Placer County about 13 years ago, partly due to the school district’s strong reputation. “I think had I known…

The Top 10 (Non-Religious) Religious Films of 2017

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…le, eddying below the surface is the place of faith. As art meets reality, Sacramento is the setting—and also the childhood home of writer-director Greta Gerwig—where Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan) attends Catholic school. Sacramento is a sacrament, a homely-but-holy land that is contested and loved at the same time. Eventually arriving in New York City, untethered to home, Lady Bird takes to some brief experimenting, chatting up a boy with the questio…

I Miss Tina Fey

By Julie Ingersoll

…half. There were still probably 80 empty seats, and it was clear that some number of attendees had free tickets. The largest financial supporter of the event was a local news/talk radio station and its representatives were the only media allowed in. As I arrived with my Religion Dispatches press badge they stopped me before I even got to the door. I chatted with an AP reporter and he said AP had been trying for weeks to gain media access—but that…

‘Culting’: From Waco to Fundamentalist Mormons

By Catherine Wessinger

…on excessive actions taken by authorities against it. A recent report from Texas Child Protective Services states that of the 53 YFZ girls between ages 14 and 17 in state custody, 31 have children or are pregnant. However, authorities in Texas took the measure of removing all the children from the YFZ community. At first their mothers went with them, but then the children were separated from their mothers. After breastfeeding advocates and others…

Don’t Buy Alito’s Assurances: Here’s What Happens Next After Roe Falls

By Brynn Tannehill

…for being lesbian, gay, or transgender. Imagine if those LGBT parents flee Texas, and Texas tries to have them extradited from California? What happens when the only safe place to go for women and LGBT people is to get out of the US, and flee to someplace that will refuse to send them back? If, in this scenario, California were to allow the extradition, there would be an explosion of protest and dissent, and a lot of Democratic politicians would l…

Texas Approves Anti-Muslim Resolution for Textbooks

By Lauri Lebo

On Friday, the Texas Board of Education passed its anti-Muslim resolution condemning what it claims is a “pro-Islamic/anti-Christian bias” in public school textbooks. After dismantling the social studies curriculum this spring and rewriting it to fit a far-right fundamentalist and evangelical Christian agenda, this late-in-the-game measure seems almost as if conservative board members realized after the fact, “Shoot! We forgot to target the Musli…

Constitutional Attorney Changes into Drag During Talk on Cancelation of West Texas A&M Drag Show

By Chrissy Stroop

…ents, booked an on-campus venue, and began to advertise the event and sell tickets. Then, 11 days before the drag fundraiser was set to take place, WT President Walter Wendler, who has a record of inserting his right-wing Christian bias into his public roles, unilaterally canceled the performance via a pedantic email. Seidel tells the story of the drag show cancelation at West Texas A&M (clip=5.5 minutes): Much of the moralizing communique was cou…

The Link Between Texas’ Law Requiring ‘In God We Trust’ Signs in Schools and the January 6 Insurrection

By Andrew L. Seidel

…handbook christened the legislation, “the National Motto Display Act.” The Texas bill requiring the display of this phrase looks an awful lot like Project Blitz’s National Motto Display Act, which in turn mirrors Saccones’. No surprise there, as Texas State Senator Bryan Hughes is a Christian Nationalist. He was also the driving force behind SB8 (mob rule over the womb), severe voting restrictions, and a bill to require teaching the Bible in Engli…