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New Study of Christian Nationalism in Texas Should be a Warning for the Whole Country

By David R. Brockman

…ca.” Senator Cruz has also deployed his father, itinerant preacher Rafael Cruz, as a campaign surrogate. Cruz père, who is outspoken in his calls for conservative Christian hegemony, preaches Seven Mountains Dominionism, a religious ideology which overlaps with Christian Americanism and calls for Christians to take “dominion” over society and government. Senator Cruz himself echoes these dominionist sentiments in his epilogue to Rafael’s book, A T…

The Sex Scandal Following Whole Foods’ Guru

By Michael Schulson

Over the holidays, the New York Times ran a punishing profile of Marc Gafni, an ex-rabbi who reinvented himself as a New Age spiritual leader. A founder of the Center for Integral Wisdom and organizer of the Success 3.0 Summit, Gafni has built a New Age brand around two trademark concepts—Unique Self and Outrageous Love—which, like much of “Integral Theory,” seems to draw from psychotherapy, Eastern and Western religious traditions, and philosoph…

How the Abortion Debate Turned the Christian Right On To Liberal Arguments… and Birthed the Religious Freedom Industry

By Eric C. Miller

…v. Wade established a constitutional right to obtain an abortion, abortion politics have been linked with health care politics. This has played out in the variants of the Hyde Amendment, the opposition to the Clinton Health Security Act of 1993, and the Affordable Care Act of 2010. Evangelicals, in particular, have tempered the Left’s right-to-health care with a primary emphasis on “protecting the rights of the unborn.” This can be seen in the adv…

Purpose Driven Atheism: Secular Maharishis Seeking True Believers

By Frank Schaeffer

…logies than all religions combined. Or put it this way, the atheist says “Crusades!” and the religious believer answers “Pol Pot!” Are we to be stuck trading insults like schoolchildren, or is there a better way to discuss the two eternally unanswerable questions: the quest for ultimate meaning and the search for the origin of everything? At a time when Islamist extremists strap on bombs and blow up women and children; when the United States has j…

Some Christian and Muslim Leaders Urging ‘No’ Vote in Australian Mail Ballot on Marriage Equality; and More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ober event in New York for the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, “one of the most ancient lay orders in the Catholic Church.” Ireland’s gay Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar joined Canadian PM Justin Trudeau at Montreal’s pride parade as part of a four-day visit. Asia: Activist surveys responses to Taiwan’s marriage equality ruling Creatrix Tiara “a queer South Asian person who was born and raised in a a very homophobic So…

Conservative Bishops Headed For Synod Victory?; Indonesian Sharia Official Says Gay Caning Law Meant To ‘Safeguard Human Dignity’; Slovenian Court OK’s Referendum on Marriage Equality Law; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…the congregation.” At the synod itself, drama and intrigue continued. The New York Times’ Laurie Goodstein and Elisabette Povoledo describe the situation this way: Pope Francis had encouraged bishops from more than 120 countries to speak freely when they gathered at the Vatican nearly three weeks ago for a broad discussion of family matters to guide the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics. And speak freely, they have. The result has been the most…

God and the Gay Christian: An Interview with Matthew Vines

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…ur identity, whether it’s slave or free, ultimately fades away and we have new dignity, status and value in Christ—so we ended up in that liberating trajectory on the issue of slavery even though the New Testament doesn’t explicitly condemn it. In the very same passage it talks about how male and female is something that doesn’t affect people’s status when we’re baptized in Christ, so I argue that hierarchy and gender in marriage is not intrinsic…

Global LGBT Recap: Promise and Peril in the New Year

By Peter Montgomery

…oncern about LGBT Equality in a Post-Mandela Nation Joe Morgan of Gay Star News reported on New Year’s Day that some South African activists are concerned that the legacy of Nelson Mandela, which included the groundbreaking inclusion of sexual orientation in the Constitution, could be at risk in his absence. President Jacob Zuma, as well as several other representatives in South Africa, have made homophobic comments in the past. ‘When I was growin…

In Praise of Failure: Is Defining Religion Such a Good Idea?

By Ivan Strenski

Recently, the New York Times’ religion writer appeared to throw up his hands in despair at trying to fix on a definition of religion—since the word seemed to cover everything from Pope Francis’ latest encyclical to CrossFit. As Mark Oppenheimer exasperatedly wrote, “If everything is religion then maybe nothing is.” As noted here in RD, Oppenheimer’s article drew a sharp and immediate retort from historian of religion, Damon Linker, who set out to…

LGBT’s, Opponents Prep for Vatican Synod; UN Rights Council Adopts LGBT Resolution; Brazil’s Evangelicals Eye Presidency; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ring us into a new humanity starting from the rejected and precarious. PinkNews reports that the first World Congress of Homosexual Catholics’ Associations will be held in Portugal next week, bringing together 28 associations from 16 countries who will call on Pope Francis to make the church more inclusive. According to Portugal News Online, the meeting has been timed to coincide with the Synod on the Family, and will promote the acceptance and in…