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Star Trek: Politics Anti-Matters

By Nathan Schneider

…began, actually, in the show’s original 1966 pilot, in which the character Number One (played by creator Gene Roddenberry’s wife, Majel Barrett) showed none of the emotional hysteria expected of onscreen women at the time. Deemed too racy by the network, her demeanor was given to Spock, the half-Vulcan who spent the next three years’ worth of episodes struggling to stay logical amid the raging passions of his friends. While Spock was always trying…

Forced Cremation of Covid Dead in Sri Lanka Further Marginalizes Muslim Community

By Andrea Malji and Amarnath Amarasingam

…020, there have been 146 Covid deaths in Sri Lanka with a disproportionate number coming from the Muslim community; despite making up less than 10% of the population, Muslims account for nearly half of the reported deaths. A Muslim leader in Sri Lanka informed the authors that the number is actually higher, and that 82 Muslims have died, with over 70 cremations. The cremation of the victims was carried out by the state without the approval of the…

Will Pope’s African Tour Change Attitudes on Divorce and LGBTQ Among African Catholics?

By Kaya Oakes

…a has gone through a startling increase in recent decades. Since 1980, the number of African Catholics has grown by 238%, in contrast to Europe, where it has grown by only 6%. Some of this may be attributable to higher fertility rates in African countries, but it also reflects the church’s success in missionary efforts. And where there are a decreasing number of vocations to the priesthood in Europe, where vocations have declined by 23%, African v…

The Religious Right’s Apocalyptic Visions of an Obama Presidency

By Bill Berkowitz

…ny time during the day. Gun ownership is outlawed in eight states and “the number is growing with increasing Democratic control of state legislatures and governorships.” Home schooling has been “severely restricted” thanks to the lobbying efforts of the National Education Association. Anonymous points out that although President Obama “expressed strong personal disapproval” of many of the Supreme Court decisions that have brought about these chang…

Report from Paris During COP21: Let Us Not Commit Global Suicide

By Donna Schaper

…able planet. The Kyoto Protocol, which commits industrialized countries to internationally binding emission reduction targets, was the first climate treaty to emerge from this process. It was passed at COP3 in December 1997 at Kyoto, Japan and came into force in February 2005 when a sufficient number of developed countries signed the agreement; the United States did not, hampering negotiations for the next decade. A successor agreement, involving…

The Atheist Encounter with Christianity: A Failure to Disbelieve?

By Paul Wallace

…l I could no longer live with it. Then, one day while I was talking on the phone in a dark room, just like that, I shed my belief in a literal “first couple.” Strangely, I don’t remember who I was talking to or what the conversation was about, but all at once I understood and it felt great. Yet my childhood belief had provided protection for me and had given shape to my understanding of God and even of myself, and what did I have to replace it wit…

The Pundits and the Dominionists

By Julie Ingersoll

…any other name) a Reconstructionist? And as Gerson noted in his essay, the number of people who can be labeled in this way would “fit in a phone booth.” (Actually there are significantly more than he recognizes, but I take his point.) My point, though, is that this is the wrong question. Far more interesting, I think, is to look at the influence of Christian Reconstruction; how has it impacted the style of the conservative Christianity that makes…

Prosperity Gospel and Foreclosure

By Sarah Posner

…make a “Passover offering.” Seven is a biblically significant number, the number of completion and perfection, and in this spring of 2007 the Praise-a-thon began on Easter Sunday, the seventh day of Passover. If you make the Passover offering, Munsey claims, God will give you seven blessings: God will dispatch an angel to lead miracles; rid you of your enemies; bless you with prosperity; heal you; give you longevity; give you an inheritance you k…

The Jihadi Revolution is Dead (But Bin Laden’s Death Didn’t Kill It)

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…le of sacred warfare has been an exciting and alluring image among a large number of mostly young and largely male Muslims around the world for over a decade. It is an image that was brought to dramatic attention by the September 11, 2001 attacks, and stimulated by the perception that US military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq were wars against Islam. This jihadi vision of sacred warfare was propagated by the internet, through postings on chat ro…

Dirty Money in the Appalachian Church: Six Years After Deadly Coal Mine Disaster, Where Are We Now?

By Michael J. Iafrate

…statement on the issue of fracking, which is also affecting an increasing number of communities in the state, it has not publicized it widely either. The same reluctance to speak loudly and clearly can be seen in the Diocese’s response to worker justice issues. In 2013, during the Fairness at Patriot campaign, when church officials were asked why the bishop was not saying anything publicly in defense of the miners whose pensions and insurance wer…