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What Most Critics Missed About Dustin Lance Black’s ‘Under the Banner of Heaven’

…and questioned the prevalence of Mormon fundamentalism in the contemporary United States. The history of Mormon fundamentalism offers important context for Banner and illuminates the reality that, while small in numbers, Mormon fundamentalism is relatively common. But, what is a Mormon fundamentalist? It was almost 50 years after the death of the religion’s founder that the LDS Church began the long process of ending the practice of polygamy. In 1…

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America, Religious Values, and the Death Penalty; Or, If it Was Good Enough for Jesus and Socrates…

…ve injustice. Evolving Standards of Decency Over the past forty years, the United States Supreme Court has returned repeatedly to that dilemma as it tries to hammer out a view of the death penalty that will fit within our Constitutional system; as well as addressing what it famously referred to as “evolving standards of decency that mark progress of a maturing society.” That phrase appeared in the first major death penalty case to be heard in resp…

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Gun-Wielding White Couple Make Perfect Protagonists for Republican Convention’s ‘Great American Story’

…In our new book, Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States, we show that Christian nationalism was one of the strongest predictors of support for Trump in 2016, and continues to be for the political wedge issues he routinely highlights. Trump and his supporters have repeatedly emphasized the dangers Christian Americans supposedly face if he’s not reelected. For Trump followers, Christianity is fundamental to telling t…

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Obsession with Attackers’ Backgrounds Misses the Point of Terrorism

…irst theaters for jihadis, there wasn’t a single suicide bombing. Both the United States’ and Pakistan’s intelligence services sought to bring the tactic to the mujahideen through texts and training, yet it wasn’t an easy sell. Hezbollah, who early on adopted suicide bombings, eventually abandoned the tactic for more traditional paramilitary methods. The reason jihadist groups imported terrorism from their nationalist counterparts was that they sh…

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Religion in Tension on World AIDS Day

…movement challenged the Catholic Church’s role in AIDS/HIV politics in the United States; in doing so, they challenged, as well, who “owned” the Church. As one organizer argues in the film (and here I paraphrase): “They are not the Church. We are the Church.” While a single example, this statement reminds us, today, on World AIDS Day 2008, that throughout its history, AIDS/HIV has been entangled with religion—for good and ill. As we move into the…

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We’ve Finally Begun to Confront White Christian Nationalism; But What About Its Source Text?

…undated America’s TV screens. At the time Wright was the pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, where the Obamas held membership, and many Americans were appalled at his excoriating remarks about the United States’ racist, nativist and imperialist acts against African, Asian and Indigenous peoples domestically and internationally. The optics were bad, but America’s perception was based on short cherry-picked video clips from two of…

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World AIDS Day: Sacralizing Change

…movement challenged the Catholic Church’s role in AIDS/HIV politics in the United States; in doing so, they challenged, as well, who “owned” the Church. As one organizer argues in the film (and here I paraphrase): “THEY are not the Church. We are the Church.” While a single example, this statement reminds us, today, on World AIDS Day 2008, that throughout its history, AIDS/HIV has been entangled with religion—for good and ill. As we move into the…

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Know-Nothing Christians Irate Over Obama Comments

…olution. And we see to this day very different models of secularism in the United States and France. In France, secularism means that you cannot wear religious garb to public school; in the United States it means just the opposite. Atatürks’s original conception of secularism in Turkey owed far more to the French model, and what we have seen in the past decade in Turkey is a major debate about what model of secularism the Republic should adopt. Re…

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The Sacred and the Dead: Truckin’ as a New American Pilgrimage

…the real journey is one of self-discovery. The religious landscape of the United States has profoundly changed since the genesis of the Grateful Dead 50 years ago, especially in terms of the dramatic rise of the number of Americans who are no longer affiliated with traditional religious institutions or denominations. In the absence of traditional religious affiliation, people are increasingly turning to popular culture to explore and interrogate…

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Top Five (Less Sensational, But More Dangerous) Things to Remember About Pat Robertson (1930-2023)

…el), a heroic Christian general lies to the president and secedes from the United States with several nuclear bases. The moral: Robertson may never again be a major politician, and when he sold out to Rupert Murdoch he gave up some of his power to shape the news. But he still helps form the imaginations of the students at his university and the viewers of his show. In this role he often channels their hopes and fears into imagining holy wars—scena…

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