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Dutch Treat: Betsy DeVos and the Christian Schools Movement

By Peter Laarman

…rch (CRC) may have broken away from the much older Reformed Church in America (RCA) in 1857, but for us the schism was still so real and palpable that it was as though it had happened yesterday. We were First Reformed (RCA) people, and my dad would privately refer to the CRC zealots as “the cutoffs” and the “holier-than-thou” crowd. (And it should be said that in the Village of Oostburg—pop. 965 when I was attending Oostburg HS—there was real comp…

Pope’s US Visit Provokes Intense Attention; New Vatican Book on Man-Woman Complementarity & New Int’l Report on Christian Role Models for LGBT Equality; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ssure organizations to shy away from social justice, human rights or political advocacy work. “There’s a clause looking at NGO accountability and transparency, but I think the bill is entirely looking at squeezing the NGO space and also the whole rule of law,” said Frank Mugisha, executive director of Sexual Minorities Uganda. “It’s very vague.” Inside the bill are a number of provisions that aim to monitor potential “subversive activities” by NGO…

What’s in a Name? Religious Nones and the American Religious Landscape

By Richard Flory

…et even then we are left with a category that implies a particular theoretical and methodological approach to religion that really doesn’t fit what is going on in real world. Rather than imposing a category that forces a multi-dimensional reality into a dichotomous measure of religious or not, or thinking about religion as a purely numbers game of what group has the most adherents, we might shift our attention to focus on how religion, values, rel…

Workers Once Forced the Social Gospel Into Churches—Can It Happen Again?

By Eric C. Miller

…are, if anything, more robust today than they were a century ago. The biblical case for organized labor remains intact. Meanwhile, the tradition is more clearly on their side. In the first Gilded Age, official church statements of support for organized labor were scarce. Today, many denominations have such statements and they could be used to hold clergy and laity alike accountable in the midst of labor disputes. Given that rates of religious affi…

Rome Has Spoken and Rome Is Finished: The Vatican’s Sexual Abuse Summit ‘Failed Miserably’

By Mary E. Hunt

…s has to be built. It does not mean someone must leave the church as the McCarrick case proved, only that the person be dealt with by civil authorities and leave ministry where the possibility of abusing power remains. Is that too much to ask in the face of mounting evidence of criminal behavior and cover-ups? On the other hand, Francis’ approach might mean that church teachings and polity will be handled locally as abuse cases are. Catholics can…

RD News Round-Up—Oct.14, 2008

By Bill Berkowitz

…orted that “SurveyUSA said the Proposition 8 campaign remains too close to call because of potential statistical error, the new poll is the first that shows the measure gaining strength since late September and potentially pulling ahead.” On October 3, Americans United for Separation of Church and State’s Sandhya Bathija reported on sitting in on conference call sponsored by Concerned Women for America (CWA), and the leaders of California’s Protec…

How Not To Defend Atheism

By Vlad Chituc

…ough, than when Silverman discusses atheism. Just as Silverman relies on a caricature of religion as a malicious entity only capable of perpetuating evil, he renders atheism as big and pristine an entity as possible. Atheism is, in Silverman’s words, a “logically perfect position,” and it’s so universal that explicit theists are included amongst its practitioners. That’s right: for Silverman, if you believe in a universal spirit or a prime mover b…

Religion Round-Up: What’s Going on in Religion Around the World

By Diane Winston

…ummer Games. But the Pew Forum’s findings are worth remembering: A growing number of urban, educated, 20-something Chinese men and women are increasingly interested in the topic. More on religion: a story last week from the Columbus Dispatch reported that United Methodist congregations “could share pastors and combine churches with a Lutheran denomination under a partnership approved by the denomination last week.” (The Evangelical Lutheran Church…

How a Powerful ‘Ex-Gay’ Pastor is Chasing the Latino Vote

By Katherine Stewart

…errymandering and voter suppression a strategic imperative—and for a political candidate who appeals to the racism of many supporters. But the leaders of the movement can read the demographic future just as well as you or I can. Many of them understand very well that the electoral future of their movement is not ethnically homogenous. They can also see, as some members of majority-white American congregations cannot, that some of the fastest-growi…

To Be Queer, Gifted, and Black: A Conversation with Theologian Pamela Lightsey

By Nyasha Junior

…ons, in a way that is celebratory and in a way that strongly asserts their sacred worth. That’s important because in many spaces the well-being and sacred worth of black queer women, black lesbian women, black trans women is not a positive thing. In some ways the book is a love narrative to them to say “Yes, God loves you, and this is why God loves you theologically.” It is me talking about God and the goodness of God and the being of God in a way…