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From Pastor to Harvard’s ‘Godless Church’ Planter

By Becky Garrison

…ion? I was raised in the Deep South where my dad was a Baptist pastor. I always felt my calling was to be in ministry but the Baptist church didn’t allow women pastors. As I moved through my young adulthood, my theology became more liberal leading me into the Methodist church where I became a pastor. I’d always been a thinker so when questions relating to my faith began to pop up, I ignored them at first. You see, questioning and doubts were sinfu…

Closed-Door Conference in Poland Shows How US Conservative Christian Networks Export ‘Conversion Therapy’

By Antonia Gross and Rina Nikolaeva

…position as “USA Country Representative” and has spoken on IFTCC stages a number of times. In many ways Haynes embodies the US conversion network presence at the Warsaw conference. In addition to her affiliations noted above, she wrote a letter to the UN that was published by Family Watch International; she was interviewed by Family Research Council president Tony Perkins; and, on behalf of the IFTCC, she drafted a declaration against conversion…

New Poll Finds “Growing Appetite” for Mixing Religion and Politics

By Sarah Posner

…from electoral politics, as they could signal to candidates that a growing number of voters are interested in hearing them talk about their faith. While the number of Americans who believe it is important for members of Congress to have strong religious beliefs has remained steady since 2010—about 6-in-10, with even more significant majorities among Protestants and Catholics—this poll shows a growing number of Americans who want to hear candidates…

The Religious Mourning of ‘Saint’ Kobe Bryant Continues

By Terry Shoemaker

…year’s All-Star game, one team wore Kobe’s number 24, while the other wore number 2, Gianna’s uniform number. The MVP award, given this year to Los Angeles Clippers’ star forward Kawhi Leonard, was renamed permanently for Kobe Bryant. Pregame and half-time shows centered on Kobe, his family, and his impact on the sport of basketball and society. The collective grief and bereavement displayed by fans and players alike not only demonstrate the power…

Gambian Prez Rails Against Gay ‘Evil Empire’; Irish Priest Comes Out During Mass; Trans Talk on Tunisian TV Sparks Debate; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…t. I never felt it because my brain has been programed to be a man; in the way I think, the way I speak, and the way I walk.” Al Arabiya reported that homosexuality is a criminal offense in Tunisia. In a traditionally Muslim country, which is also known to be one of the Arab world’s most progressive, Jalel’s story sparked mixed reactions on social media. “These are lies. God created her as female and her name is Leila. She rejected her femininity…

Atheists Ignore Islamophobia at their Peril

By Chris Stedman

…or All (Not Just Atheists) When incidents like these occur, I think of the ways in which principled religious criticism can easily devolve into unthinking prejudice. I can think of any number of examples from atheist conferences I’ve attended, such as the time I watched with dismay as attendees shouted “show us some ankle” at women wearing burkas for a satirical musical performance, or when a group of fundamentalist Muslim protesters was encircled…

Sing the Glory of the Smoke: The Spiritual History of Jazz

By Andrew Aghapour

…ad to make stuff up. I had to say, what if we thought about ritual in this way, in the way of jazz? What if we thought about community in the way of jazz? I also wanted to propose, in writing, the kinds of things the sound proposes in our hearing. And the way I did this was to inundate myself in the music I was writing about at any particular moment. And when I wrote about Cecil Taylor, I listened to Cecil Taylor. When I was thinking about writing…

Way Beyond Atheism: God Does Not (Not) Exist

By Paul Wallace

…views.” This would be quite a good argument, if it were true. The Negative Way There is within Christian theology a great tradition of negating “God.” By this I mean the negation of everything we think we know about God, every concept we carry about God, every image we imagine of God, everything that God “is” to us. In order to demonstrate how this works, we will consider three levels of statements about God. In addition, four different images of…

Secularism in the US is Larger, More Diverse and More Dynamic Than Ever, But You Wouldn’t Know it From the Media

By Chrissy Stroop

…o “rely solely on research produced by institutions that do not, either by way of their mission or their funding sources, have an explicit interest in serving the nonreligious,” Levin explains. On the issue of media representation of secularism and secular Americans, Levin, the founder and head of Secular Strategies and co-chair of the Democratic National Committee’s Interfaith Council, has a point. Nonreligious Americans are generally a pro-socia…

Is Abortion No Longer Significant for Evangelicals — or Has it Just Become Like Water?

By Bradley Onishi

…bortion is the way to avoid the carnality of living, breathing beings. The way to get away from bodies. Away from the bodies of murdered children. Away from the body politic. It’s a way to render love for angels, while pretending you are one. In 2021 many white evangelicals (and others) no longer need to use abortion as the rhetorical middleman to justify their disdain for religious, racial, sexual, and gender minorities. One explanation for the a…