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Why I Won’t Leave the Mormon Church Alone

By Holly Welker

…he crisis of faith those elements prompted. Mormonism has unusual and esoteric doctrines (i.e., the idea that God is married), a rich and complex (albeit somewhat brief) history, some deeply peculiar practices (such as wearing sacred underwear and baptizing other people’s dead ancestors), and educated, ambitious, but often clannish and eccentric members. The intricacies, oddities, and relative newness sometimes make it both intriguing and impenetr…

Ricky Gervais: Why I’m an Atheist

By Lauri Lebo

…me the link to the comedian’s message, I eagerly clicked on it. I was surprised when I saw this wasn’t a clip of his latest hysterical stand up, but an essay he penned for the Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog. The topic of his essay was how he came to be an atheist. The whole piece is here. While there is humor in the piece, it’s actually more of a sweet thoughtful response to all the people who ask him and other atheists why they don’t belie…

Pope Invites his Flock to Join Facebook: Is the Digital Reformation Here?

By Elizabeth Drescher

…interior world” (that with a big dollop of latitude on the notion of “interiority” itself)? Where are we fully free of the risk of duplicitous self-presentation? Yet the papal encyclical is to be lauded for framing the overall discussion in cultural, ethical, and spiritual terms rather than narrowly technical or functional ones: …the radical changes taking place in communications are guiding significant cultural and social developments. The new t…

Looking For Answers at the Oscars: A Guide to This Year’s Contenders

By S. Brent Rodriguez Plate

…I? Where tradition turned for answers to vision quests and pilgrimages, to rituals and sacred writings, our modern mass-mediated age offers a new text for exegesis: the movies. The films under consideration last year (the class of 2009) reflected a broad unease about the future status of Homo sapiens as a species. Humans were threatened with apocalyptic extinction (The Road, Terminator Salvation, 2012, 9), and/or with becoming something other than…

Joyless Primaries Grind On

By Joanna Brooks

…s put-your-shoulder-to-the-wheel tenacity is setting the tone for the GOP primaries. Onward grinds the contest, protracted unnaturally by super PAC money, and delivering few surprises: Romney continues to win the Northeast and West, Santorum the Bible Belt. Ohio turned out just about the way the best prognosticators in the game predicted. There’s been nothing so dramatic to punch up the storyline as the anti-Mormon flare-ups we witnessed late last…

Lila Rose Targets Planned Parenthood with Lies

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…es, but imagine a latchkey kid saying “I’m sorry, my mom can’t come to the phone right now” instead of “Nope! I’m home alone and defenseless!” and you’ve got the basic idea. Not surprisingly, though, a lot of the people who are most particular about Catholic teaching—people otherwise likely to be sympathetic to Rose’s goals—aren’t convinced that’s what’s going on here. And these folks clash, from time to time, with Rose’s fanboys and fangirls. It…

Is Pro-Life Cause Célèbre Chen Guangcheng Actually Pro-Life?

By Lindsay Beyerstein

…to illegal and coercive tactics to meet their quotas. These abuses happen primarily in rural areas where families want more children to work the land. In the cities, most couples voluntarily limit the size of their families. The central government disavows responsibility for the actions of these officials, but it has never made an example of any official who has been caught coercing women, according to Steven Mosher of the Population Research Inst…

The Environmental Politics of Vodou, New Orleans Style

By Joseph Laycock

…neath the waters.”) But the symposium was also important moment for Afro-Caribbean religions in America. Festival organizer Sallie Ann Glassman received initiation as a Vodou priestess in Haiti. She has demonstrated that her religion can take a lead in civic engagement just like any other. Vodou has long been a stigmatized religion in America. Early films like White Zombie (1932)––based on the sensationalistic writing of William Seabrook—presented…

Scott Roeder’s Religion

By Sarah Posner

…raphed a piece of paper on the dashboard of Roeder’s car: It contained the phone number of Cheryl Sullenger, Operation Rescue’s senior policy advisor, who served two years in prison for conspiring to bomb abortion clinics in 1988. Roeder also told me that Sullenger was present at the lunch with Newman where they discussed “justifiable” homicide, and that Newman had given Roeder the autographed copy of his book just three months before Roeder kille…

Global LGBT Recap: Culture War Claims More Victims

By Peter Montgomery

…ecostal churches. Bruner summarizes: While others have focused upon the American origins of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill, it is essential that Uganda’s unique social, religious, and political contexts not be neglected in understanding how the bill developed and how Museveni has reacted to its passage. Support for the bill within Uganda is not absolute, nor is it only motivated by the rationale given by American evangelicals and Pentecostals wi…