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American Christianity Is Changing Fast: Five Stories to Watch in 2016

…as religious leaders, is the so-called “Rise of the Religious Nones.” The number of dropouts/defectors from church involvement has risen significantly over the last several years, such that about 23 percent of the American population now claims no religious affiliation. They leave for many reasons, ranging from a general disillusionment with large-scale institutions in general to the politicization of religion and religious scandals—whether finan…

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How America’s Charismatic Christianity Helped Fuel the Fantasyland Presidency of Donald Trump

…er people. At various points, you cite an anti-establishment streak in the American temperament. Would you say that Americans are generally too quick to disbelieve official accounts and too quick to believe alternative theories? Yes, I think that is precisely correct, and I think it is in large measure a result of the nation having been born of the Enlightenment and of fervent Christianity. These are flipsides, too. This extreme credulity and extr…

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The Unbearable Whiteness of American Lent

…iritual and cultural celebration. It also doesn’t help that the origins of American Catholicism, like any other mostly white denomination, is stained by its racist past. The earliest American bishops defended slavery and even urged the Vatican to recognize the Confederacy; and for a long time, African Americans were rejected by most seminaries and convents. Roman Catholicism has attempted to course-correct since then—a friend once referred to Pope…

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Gay-Hating Church Burns “Idols”: A Report

…ued that acts such as the burning of the Qur’an, while legal, provoke anti-American sentiment and endanger American troops, Westboro’s Tim Phelps argues that it’s the invasion of Muslim nations and the killing of countless civilians that has inspired violence by Muslims. The media, he says, ignores these civilian deaths, “as if their lives did not matter at all,” instead calling down wrath on religious believers exercising their rights to free spe…

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No, I Don’t Owe My Yoga Mat to Vivekananda

…ch writes about Vivekananda as though he reflected something mainstream in American culture: “His prescription for life was simple, and perfectly American: ‘work and worship.’” And she claims that Vivekananda’s popularity waned because America’s “baby boomers commandeered the yoga business.” First, Vivekananda was never “popular” in the sense that modern yoga became popularized in the late twentieth century. He certainly gained the attention of a…

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Ebola and Us: The American Roots of Liberia’s Trauma

…er polite and academic. The ACS types took up mob violence against African American schools and churches and raided antislavery institutions. In Connecticut they blocked the opening of a black college (the first of its kind) in New Haven, and they persecuted Prudence Crandall’s school for African American girls and women in Canterbury, putting Crandall on trial and physically destroying her school. The Colonization Society’s official name was “The…

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The Landmark 85-Year-Old Report Absent From Debates Over Missionary’s Death

…ve” justifies the means. As a scholar of missionary history, I’ve seen how American missionaries have assisted those in need. During World War I, American missionaries across the Middle East were key protagonists in forming the Near East Relief, which administered aid to millions displaced by war and conflict. Into the mid-twentieth century, missionaries and faith-based organizations were at the forefront of addressing global refugee crises follow…

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Red Pop and Freedom: How (And How Not) to Celebrate Juneteenth, a New Federal Holiday

…that red-colored food and drinks draws upon the diasporic roots of African-American and American foodways. Enslaved Africans sent to Texas, the westernmost of the former Confederacy and cotton kingdom, were drawn from Yoruba and Kongo people for which red held spiritual meaning of sacrifice, transition, and power. In his insightful New York Times article, “Hot Links and Red Drinks: The Rich Food Tradition of Juneteenth” soul-food expert Adrian Mil…

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Inside Outsourced: Come See Where Your Jobs Went

…ere it’s set.  In the last few years, South Asians—often touted as a model American minority, like Asian Americans more generally—have featured much more frequently on television, giving some networks the look of college campuses. There’s Aziz Ansari (Parks and Recreation), Aasif Mandvi (The Daily Show with Jon Stewart), Danny Pudi (Community) and now a whole show about ethnically ambiguous brown people who are not Latino. As if Nikki Haley’s hybr…

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