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Spiritual Envy: Michael Krasny’s Agnostic Quest

By Lisa Webster

…in life but want what Mark Twain called the “evil joy” that comes from destruction. But there are so many decent people of faith, and people who strive for virtue because of their faith. You talk about the destructive consequences of certainty. Or belief in absolutes, I call it too. It’s not only the Islamic tradition, it’s very much part of the Abrahamic religions, where the zealot will say that God deems this something that deserves punishment,…

No, the Democratic Party Is (Still) Not the Party of God

By Daniel José Camacho

…ith. The Democratic presumptive nominee boasts a more convincing Christian worldview than does the Republican, who has had trouble convincing churchgoers of his theological seriousness. In order for Graham to present Clinton’s “position of faith” as breaking the door open for an “activist Christian left,” she ends up committing various leaps and omissions. Graham blurs the important distinction between theological liberalism and progressive politi…

Liberty University’s In-House Conversion ‘Therapist’ Retires, But Will the Christian School Cease This Discredited Practice?

By Lucas Wilson

…e queer Liberty alumni will continue to draw attention to the bigotry that runs rampant at the world’s largest fundamentalist university. Liberty and Emerick had their opportunity to try to change our sexual orientations, but it ought to be known that today many of us are thoroughly, delightedly, and proudly queer. Indeed, despite how Liberty sought and continues to seek the erasure of queer life on (and off) campus, it is we queers who will have…

Image of Hubert Aiwanger, Bavaria's deputy premier speaking at a podium.

Holocaust Humor and The ‘Real’ Germany — As Top Officials Shatter Post-WWII Taboos, German Conservatives Follow GOP Playbook and Charge Ahead

By Annika Brockschmidt

…nger has acted as if his personal recollection were the only way to reconstruct what happened. For him, the past is mystery, a secret that is impossible to unravel: “In addition, the truth of many allegations can no longer be established beyond doubt. Facts and circumstances can no longer be fully reconstructed. Likewise, interpretation and classification in the situational context is no longer possible.” One shudders when trying to imagine the “s…

‘Leaving is Never So Simple as Stepping Over a Line’ — A Conversation with the Author of ‘Rift,’ a New Memoir on Christian Patriarchy

By Audrey Clare Farley

…rls are always to blame for their own sexual assaults. And by offering up [stories about] the “bogeyman” predators of the outside world, patriarchalists distract from the very real predators within the church. It interests me how purity culture and “family values” also serve eugenicist ends. You mention pamphlets, like John Thomson’s Pathway to Christian Marriage, that aim to ensure marital harmony and longevity. This reminds me of James Dobson’s…

The Meaning of Make Believe (Why Religion Doesn’t Have to Be “Real”)

By Neil Ellingson

…ose religious philosophy weaves Plato with the New Testament and shows a scrupulous concern with the material world, writes in Gravity and Grace, “The mind is not forced to believe in the existence of anything…the only organ of contact with existence is acceptance, love. That is why beauty and reality are identical. That is why joy and the sense of reality are identical.” Her idea is that something, anything—the Bible, the cross, the person slumpe…

Dispatches From the Rhodian Shore: A (Tough) Love Letter to Religious Studies

By Todd LeVasseur

…and from where I earned my Ph.D. (go Gators!). I think, too, of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, as well as the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture. In theology I think of, for example, Drew Theological School; but I also think of the very real pushback from some of the more conservative (read: white evangelical) schools of theology and the approaches of their traditions to understanding the natural world th…

‘Hello, Trump Warriors!’ Little-Known Preachers and Rabble Rousers are the Unregulated Id of the Felon’s First Rally

By Jeff Sharlet

…of me? She drops her voice, it’s very important at the upper echelons of Trumpworld to be able to do voices. “‘Oh, President Trump is a convicted felon.’ Well, you wanna know something?” Both hands raise, she points with each at the blank Vegas sky. “The man I worship is also a convicted felon!” Beat. “And he was murdered on a Roman cross!” When Trump ran in 2016, the political press didn’t get his religion. It was the prosperity gospel, “health…

Maybe Millennials Are Just Realizing That ‘God is Dead’

By Hollis Phelps

…when my students criticized “religion,” they often seamlessly replaced the word “religion” with “Christianity” or “church,” which is largely consistent with the polling data that show increased dissatisfaction with religious organizations and a decline in church attendance and membership. All of which leads me to Rachel Held Evans’ recent piece on CNN’s religion blog, titled “Why millennials are leaving the church” which has gone viral this past w…

An Open Letter To American Muslims on Same-Sex Marriage

By Reza Aslan and Hasan Minhaj

…ght to same-sex marriage, but then expecting empathy for our community’s struggle, is hypocritical. Think about the way people look at your hijabi sister or your bearded brother when they walk through the mall. Think about the grumbles and stares you get at airports. Think about the vitriol that’s spewed on you by your own elected political leaders. That’s how your LGBT brothers and sisters feel every day of their lives. Are you okay with that? We…