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Six Overlooked Gems from the Future of World Religions Report

By Timothy King

…3.2 million new adherents and “folk religions” (these tend to be small in number and tied to a particular people group or tribe) are likely to see gains of 2.6 million during the same time period. Such numbers are miniscule compared to the projected 61.5 million expected to switch into the “unaffiliated” category by 2050, nevertheless the 197% projected growth rate should turn more than a few heads. Something is causing people to be attracted to…

How an 1843 Revelation on Polygamy Poses a Serious Challenge to Modern Mormonism

By Benjamin E. Park

…s Smith’s belief in the importance of the doctrine, as well as the growing number of people initiated into the order. And though the prophet tried to stop the rumors from spreading, an increasing number of prominent figures outraged by the alleged practice were dedicated to root out the truth. Among those trying to expose the practice and its participants were Joseph’s brother, Hyrum, as well as his wife, Emma. Then, in May of 1843, in a radical r…

Is the Decline of Religion the Decline of Generosity?

By Peter Laarman

Last week a colleague made me aware of a recent Boston Globe column by Jeff Jacoby. That was a mischievous thing to do, as my colleague knew full well how I would react to the column’s bullshit premise. Jacoby claims to want to see the matter empirically, but it’s immediately clear he buys into the false assumption that declining religious affiliation will make the whole country worse off—that the rise of religiously unaffiliated “nones” marks th…

Secular End Times & Apocalyptic ‘Roosters’

By Gordon Haber

…es of the Millennial Experience, Richard Landes, a Professor of History at Boston University, presents a gutsy hypothesis: that many secular movements—the French Revolution, Marxism, Nazism—can be better understood as millennialist or apocalyptic. But before Landes investigates the movements themselves, he defines his terms—which, by his own admission, are “idiosyncratic.” By “millennium” he does not mean a specific date, like 2000 C.E. Instead he…

DeVos Literally Can’t Name a Discriminatory Policy She’d Refuse to Fund

By Sunnivie Brydum

…ion in public schools one of her top priorities in Congress,” according to Boston.com, grilled the education secretary about a Christian school in Indiana that has received more $665,000 in state voucher funds, while clearly stating that it will deny admission to any child whose family includes LGBT people. As a key architect and backer of Indiana’s uniquely sweeping “school choice” voucher program, DeVos may have already been familiar with Bloomi…

Hicksters, Stickers, and Affection: Why I Left D.C. for the Family Farm

By Timothy King

…hem, been around since our long dirt driveway was the main thoroughfare to Boston. Two weeks after the sugar shack was complete and my mother had begun making broth out of the Thanksgiving turkey bones, I returned to Washington, D.C., and gave notice at Sojourners, the Christian social justice organization where I’d worked for seven years. Two months later, I began the actual journey back home. Forsaking city life for a return to “the land” is har…

Another Bush Comes Out for Gay Marriage

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…k called Unprotected Texts, Jennifer Wright Knust, a religion professor at Boston University, writes that “the Bible offers no viable solution to our marriage dilemmas. There is no such thing as a single, biblically-based view of legitimate marriage.” When one actually reads the Bible (something a majority of “traditional marriage” supporters have obviously not done), one finds a myriad of models for marriage—most of them involving one man and man…

Make Way for Liberal Pro-Lifers

By Patricia Miller

…celebration of a high-profile mass on the US-Mexico border and declaration that immigration reform is “another pro-life issue” may shake up the long-standing alliance between the Catholic hierarchy and the Republican Party. O’Malley told John Allen of the Boston Globe that serious Catholics could no longer “turn a blind eye to the human suffering and the tragedies that are taking place” regarding the treacherous border crossing and the mass depor…

Peter Beinart’s Controversial The Crisis of Zionism: Right Diagnosis, Wrong Treatment

By Shaul Magid

…It’s not like it’s the only book on this subject written from the left. A number of far more “radical” than books than The Crisis of Zionism have been ignored by comparison: Gershom Gorenberg’s The Accidental Empire (2007), Shlomo Sand’s The Invention of the Jewish People (2009), Oren Yiftaehel’s Ethnocracy: Land and Identity Politics in Israel/Palestine (2006), Baruch Kimmerling’s The Invention and Decline of Israeliness: State, Society, and the…

Who Says The “Partly Jewish” Are Bad For The Jews?

By Susan Katz Miller

…vel.” And while she ultimately disapproves of this, Catherine Cornille, at Boston College, writes, “More and more individuals confess to being partly Jewish and partly Buddhist, or partly Christian and partly Hindu, or fully Christian and fully Buddhist.” Some of these theologians warn that complex identities may be “shallow” if claimed not by scholars but by “dilettantes.” And yet, can a child immersed in two religions from birth be a dilettante?…