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Before Oprah, There Was the “Hour of Power”: Crystal Cathedral Pastor Robert H. Schuller Has Died

By Cathleen Falsani

…Orange Drive-In Theatre and conducted Sunday services from the tarpapered roof of its snack bar,” according to Schuller’s biography on the Hour of Power website. “One hundred persons attended that first Sunday, all in their cars. Dr. Schuller, who believe[d] this outdoor ministry experience helped inspire him to later build the all-glass Crystal Cathedral, often state[d], ‘It was there I fell in love with the sky!’” Interior of the Crystal Cathedr…

I Owe, Therefore I Am: Why Struggling Against the Banks is a Holy Obligation

By Peter Laarman

…-sorrowing.” “Never forget that credit is money.” “Necessity never made a good bargain.” And my own personal favorite: “Rather go to bed supperless than rise in debt.” Why the long inattention to basic precepts for wholesome living? May I suggest that apart from finding beady-eyed, thrift-obsessed old Franklin somewhat repulsive today, it is also the case that we also no longer inhabit his mental world in such a way that anything he might have to…

Ten Religion Stories That Went (Mostly) Missing in 2015

By Peter Laarman

…ates) is what the organizations that grew up following Saul Alinsky‘s playbook do. There are four major networks: PICO, Industrial Areas Foundation, Gamaliel, and DART. As competitive siblings, they tend to disparage one another. Together they raise many millions of dollars from the congregations (often low-income congregations) they get to join up. They also soak up millions in foundation grants. They have well-trained and well-paid staff who nev…

Piers Morgan, Guns, and the Bible

By Sarah Posner

…r Larry Pratt, who last appeared on Morgan’s program just after the Sandy Hook massacre. In that appearance, Morgan denounced Pratt as “an unbelievably stupid man” because of his claims that arming citizens (including teachers and school personnel) is the best way to decrease gun violence. Pratt is a frequent guest on cable news promoting the views of the gun lobby that sits to the right even of the NRA. Something that is almost always overlooked…

How the COVID-19 Pandemic May Permanently Change Our ‘Good Death’ Narrative

By Cody J. Sanders

…he rites and rituals that are typically performed at the time of death. A Good Death is unlikely during a pandemic. It may sound odd to some that such a thing even exists, but in every time and place our collective imagination holds a vivid picture of the Good Death. It’s the way we’d want to die if we had our druthers. Our notions of the Good Death are informed by our cultural landscape and, for many, by our religious imaginaries. Typically, the…

Will Millennials Forge a Future for the Progressive Black Church?

By Joshua L. Lazard

…as a black preacher from the South, the “preaching” moment as it is understood had an elasticity that covered more than just the pulpit on Sunday morning. Many black preachers followed suit,“calling out” the powers that be both in the pulpit and outside. Most famously, ordained clergy and activists such as Revs. Jesse Jackson, Sr. and Al Sharpton were classic embodiments of what it meant to merge politics and theology in the black church tradition…

Young Imam Reality Show, Debating Secularism, and More

By Michael J. Altman

…had to sit in front of a bunch of them and answer questions about Chinese food and Christmas. But is Kagan’s Jewishness being used against her? Or, as Joanna Brooks noted, could it help her win over Orrin Hatch? The United Methodist Church has lifted its sanctions on the Claremont School of Theology. Claremont had announced it would begin training Muslim imams and Jewish rabbis alongside its usual Christian pastors. For Daniel Schultz, Claremont’s…

With the Pope at Ground Zero

By Anthea Butler

On Friday, Pope Francis went for an walk alongside the north pool of the 9/11 Memorial Plaza to meet with ten families who lost loved ones at the twin towers and to participate in an interfaith service with over 600 religious leaders from the New York area. We have come a long way from 2001, but the hurt and pain remained in the faces of many present, including Tim Rogér of Rochester NY, who lost his daughter Jean, a flight attendant on board Ame…

God Promises to Open our Graves: A Theology for the Age of AIDS

By César J. Baldelomar

…nal quality for mainstream society. What does he mean by this? As a Div school student I think immediately of the theology of resistance known in the academy as queer theology, the strand of theological thinking that challenges the ideological and institutional structures that exclude those on the margins of society—particularly those who subvert Western sexual norms. I believe that one of the norms queer theology should challenge more forcefully…

Gay Pride Weekend Draws Mormon Allies and Equality Supporters

By Joanna Brooks

…tion’s oldest Mormon LGBT group. Some held signs quoting a verse from the Book of Mormon: “All are alike unto God.” Nineteen LDS marchers held the Affirmation banner in Houston, as did an estimated 100 LDS LGBT and allied marchers in Santiago de Chile. The largest contingent of the weekend gathered in San Francisco, where more than 100 LDS people gathered to march behind the Mormons for Marriage Equality banner, winning the parade’s award for “Abs…