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

By Antonia Gross and Rina Nikolaeva

…ned it for minors. Other countries prohibit it in certain regions, while a number of other countries continue to discuss bans or restrictions. This past January an EU-wide initiative called on the European Commission to work on a binding legal ban for all member states. All 11 US speakers were invited to Warsaw by a British Christian Lobby organization called the International Foundation for Therapeutic and Counseling Choice (IFTCC), which present…

Is LGBT-Muslim Clash Aiding Rise of Right in Europe?

By Peter Montgomery

…ustices. Brazil: In victory for evangelical psychologist, Court reverses of 18-year-old ban on gay ‘cure’ therapy A court overturned an 18-year-old ban on “conversion” therapy meant to “cure gay people, sparking street protests. According to The Guardian, “Coming a week after a bank cancelled an exhibition of gat art after protests from rightwing and evangelical Christian groups, the ruling has raised fears that progressive policies could be overt…

From Pastor to Harvard’s ‘Godless Church’ Planter

By Becky Garrison

…s a place where they could connect with other clergy persons. Over the past 18 months, I’ve developed a number of relationships with people who contact me because they find themselves in a similar situation. They ask questions, I don’t push. I’m simply a listening ear…someone safe for them to talk to. What was the response to your coming out as an atheist? An enormous number of Christians have threatened to do physical harm to me. Many others hav…

Presidential Debate: We Are All Socialists Now

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…eard this evening was rolled out here, in the first five minutes, as point number two. And Senator McCain repeated it all evening long, lest we miss it. He now proposes a state-sponsored re-definition of the current housing market, such that the federal government will buy up an enormous number of imminent foreclosures (how?), mandate a new evaluation of the real value of these homes (how?), then enable homeowners to re-negotiate their current mor…

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…

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

By Sarah Posner

…up 19 points since 2009. Among white Catholics, the percentage jumped from 17% in 2009 to 36% in 2014. But only 16% of Hispanic Catholics see the Obama administration as “unfriendly” to religion. In other words, the discontent is concentrated among white conservative religious voters. Seventy-two percent of white evangelicals identify with the Republican Party. In the poll, they expressed dissatisfaction with the way the party is representing the…

Conversion Story #643 (not a real number)

By Amina Wadud

…s hooked. I count my dates of entry from these two points: Thanksgiving day 1972 when I said shahadah, and March 1973, when I was began reading the Qur’an. For some time after that, all I read was Qur’an. Still today if things get freaky I return to just reading the Qur’an. Knowing it was originally in Arabic, I began studying Arabic through the local mosques until I could register for a course at my undergraduate University of Pennsylvania. In fa…

Are Muslims Nuts?

By Haroon Moghul

…stake tensions for incompatibilities or inherent opposition. I know a fair number of African Americans, Hispanics, and Muslims who once voted Republican. They no longer do—not because they disagree with the Republican Party, but because they feel it has no room for them. It seems opposed to their presence in America. A good number in the Muslim-majority world feel the same way about the place of Islam in the world: there is no room for it. It isn’…

RDPulpit: I Am Not A Number: Gays and Lesbians and Opinion Polls

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…9 percent of those polled said they would support same-sex marriage, those numbers shot up 14 percent if assurances were made that by law “no church or congregation would be required to perform marriages for gay couples.” Never mind that no church at this very moment is required to marry anyone, gay or straight; that simple assurance means that 43 percent of all adults and 60 percent of younger adults would suddenly support same-sex marriage. What…

Paul the Pluralist: Jesus’ Number Two Was Not a Christian

By Pamela Eisenbaum

…ul makes it absolutely clear that his message was to Gentiles. In Galatians 1:16 Paul explicitly says that God called him in order that he “might proclaim him among the Gentiles… .” Paul’s teaching about “justification by faith” (which in any case does not constitute the core of Paul’s message) meant that Gentiles were not accountable to God for their lack of Torah observance. To Paul the death and resurrection of Jesus signaled the end of the age…