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

By Chip Berlet

…in Washington DC last Fall were visible proof; as are the ongoing and anti-tax “Liberty” protests. In mid-January, the overwhelmingly Democratic Commonwealth of Massachusetts elected a conservative Republican, Scott Brown, to fill the Senate seat of the late Ted Kennedy. Brown was backed by some of the Tea Party groups and built his campaign using right-wing populist rhetoric. All across the country, Tea Party activists are moving into the Republ…

Confessions of a Hater

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…leaned close to his open Bible and began kissing it, beginning at the left-hand side of the page all the way to right-hand edge. Imagine my surprise when this same, Bible-snogging student gave a very fair and balanced presentation on Islam as his final project. (A teaching success story, if ever there was one!) The Vietnam vet would also surprise me as the semester unfolded. I expected nothing but trouble from him, but my worries abated a bit aft…

Scolding Those Who Choose Pets But No Children Pope Misses the Rainforest for the Trees

By Sarah A. Bowen

…d well, with many left outside chained to stakes or physically abused. Hand-in-hand with the pet business comes forced breeding, puppy mills, and “exotic” wildlife trapping (which was the backdrop of Netflix’s popular Tiger King series). Finally, billions of animals will be factory farmed to become cat and dog food. We cannot deny the ecological paw print of companion animals either. The pope is right about this: pet-keeping, like any widespread p…

Can You Make a Comedy About UFO Cult Mass Suicide?

By Joseph Laycock

…fined as a vagrant. So members always carried five dollars and money for a phone call. Benjamin Zeller, author of Heaven’s Gate: America’s UFO Religion, has also noted that Heaven’s Gate members engaged in a lot of self-deprecating humor because they were aware that mainstream society perceived them as crazy. This research led Jones to conclude that a comedy about Heaven’s Gate might not be as inappropriate as it sounds. “I could never make a come…

Suicide Leads to Calls for Improved Treatment of LGBT Mormons

By Joanna Brooks

…ith their attraction to people of the same sex? Do any of these prepare non-gay Mormons to respond to gay sons and daughters, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, or fellow Latter-day Saints? How does it feel to be the LDS parents of a gay child in a culture where unthinking people feel they have divine sanction to verbally abuse and discriminate against homosexuals? How does it feel to be a volunteer pastoral leader with little training or un…

Refusing Religion, Claiming the Future: A Roundtable Discussion on “The Nones Are Alright”

By Peter Laarman

…or for ill—continues to play in segregated African-American communities vis-à-vis social welfare, cultural cohesion, political engagement and educational opportunity (i.e., providing scholarships, linking with colleges and universities, establishing safe spaces for studying/tutoring/mentoring, etc.). It’s important to remember that African Americans (along with Latinos) continue to be the most residentially segregated in the U.S., have the highest…

Walking Dead and Zombie Ethics, or “Don’t Fight the Zombies. You Can’t Win”

By Kelly J. Baker

…le: these monsters are a five billion dollar industry. They appear in cell phone ads for Sprint, they chase runners in 5Ks, and they scare crowds at haunted houses and theme parks. With The Walking Dead and World War Z, zombies cemented their reign as the favored monster of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The zombie’s ubiquity begs for explanation, and there is no shortage of theories. David Denby, writing about World War Z …

“Even the Rich Suffer”: An Interview with Google’s Jolly Good Fellow Chade-Meng Tan

By Max Zahn

…money, and the meaning of life. –The Eds. Also on The Cubit: Zen and the Art of Zombie Killing Follow The Cubit, RD‘s religion-and-science portal, @TheCubit…

Mitt, the Marriotts, and Porn

By Joanna Brooks

…ankly I wouldn’t be surprised if the Marriott change was spurred by a heart-to-heart conversation with someone at the Church Office Building. Among Mormons, porn is considered a very serious problem, primarily for the damage it does to the marriages and families of the porn-addicted. Anyone who wants to talk seriously about corporate profits and morality needs to do much better than paint Mitt Romney as a porn accomplice because he sat on the bo…

Departure of the Queen

By Amina Wadud

…tch ride outside the gates of the estate where I can have bars for my cell phone and get in touch with them later today. Before the shaykh arrives, I continue with my Qur’an reading. I don’t use the tiny mp3 player anymore because this last juz’ includes most of the Qur’an that I have memorized myself, and this is more a review than a simple reflective read. Coming to the end of the Qur’an reading is also melancholy, and I forget why I felt I shou…