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Competing Visions of Family & Freedom at UN; Methodists Try to Avoid Schism on Sexuality; Catholic Cardinal Denounces LGBT ‘Demonic Ideology’; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…estern Civilization, and transcends a bipolar paradigm to create a new East-West Christendom. He spoke of Georgia as the one to lead this effort to show the world that “Georgia Is Family!” Former U.S. President George W. Bush sent a message praising the Georgian people and the World Congress of Families; he did not attend but was honored with the Family and Democracy Award. The Associated Press reported that Georgian police had detained 10 gays ri…

Trump’s Inaugural Address Gets an “F” in American Civil Religion

By Spencer Dew

…mention of those killed in action. In a speech dominated by dreadful, post-apocalyptic imagery— “rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones,” “American carnage”—this omission is all the more noticeable. But Trump’s purpose in this speech was to outline his vision of American nationalism, a nationalism not of sacrifice for transcendent liberties nor responsibility to transcendent value. Indeed, his nationalism may well represent a new American…

Are American Christians “Persecuted”?

By Eric C. Miller

…ing that both Dreher and Corey distinguish “real” persecution from its less-than-real varieties. To his credit, Dreher has always balked at claiming membership in a persecuted class, though his concerns about the loss of religious freedom often toe a blurry line. Therein may lie a problem, or at least a source of confusion. While Dreher often explicitly disavows the suggestion that Christians are “persecuted” in America, he also claims that they a…

Controversy Over Jay Shetty’s Authenticity Masks the Bigger Question: Why is the West Drawn to Such Figures Over and Over Again?

By Prea Persaud

…ake the rounds on social media, but many have also found his platitudes eye-roll-worthy and his story about his monk past suspicious. A recent exposé on Shetty by the Guardian’s John McDermott expertly dives into his past, accusations of plagiarism, and his certification course, but in the author’s effort to discover the higher truth of Jay Shetty, McDermott, like so many other detractors, misses one essential element of his popularity—Orientalism…

“Hey You! Anti-Semite!”: A Jewish Krewe does Mardi Gras

By Barbra Barnett

…ts of jest. This approach is analogous to that of the traditionally African-American Krewe of Zulu. Scholars of American Jewish humor often draw parallels with traditions of African-American humor, and the comparison between Krewe du Jieux and the Krewe of Zulu is an easy one. Zulu has a longer and deeper history in the city, originating in a social aid and pleasure club, which is a form of social service organization that emerged to serve the nee…

A Twisted Love Story: How American Evangelicals Helped Make Putin’s Russia and How Russia Became the Darling of the American Right

By Katherine Kelaidis

…landed in the mouth of a Russian president. Frequently referring to the “so-called West,” Putin lists the crimes of the NATO nations as including that “They sought to destroy our traditional values and force on us their false values that would erode us, our people from within, the attitudes they have been aggressively imposing on their countries, attitudes that are directly leading to degradation and degeneration, because they are contrary to huma…

Oral Roberts, Pioneering Christian Zionist

By Shalom Goldman

…page of the Palestine Post (the precursor of today’s Jerusalem Post) of May 14, 1948, which reads: “State of Israel Declared.” When Jerry Falwell died in May of 2007, he was eulogized by leaders of the American Jewish community as “a dear great friend of Israel.” Oral Roberts, Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson made the case for Israel so consistently and unequivocally that today, among the conservative evangelical faithful, it is a ca…

What Coverage of a Fatal Orthodox Baptism Reveals About Western Media

By Katherine Kelaidis

…bly in the 2nd century, but ultimately became the standard practice of the Western church by the 10th century. That being said, many Protestant traditions, particularly those who rejected the baptism of infants, eventually returned to full-immersion baptism. It’s the medieval, pre-Reformation context that’s important here, however. Because like many ancient liturgical practices retained in the East, full-immersion baptism became an important marke…

Gandhi, his Grandson, Israel, and the Jews

By Shalom Goldman

…d rejection of violence through forgiveness. Gandhi’s Jewish Interlocutors, 1921-38 Of course much of the incivility of the current Gandhi flap can be understood in terms of the polarized nature of any conversation about Israel and the Palestinians. It is hard to imagine, in this overheated climate, how it is that the elder Gandhi and his Jewish conversation partners were able to conduct an actual dialogue about nationalism and religion over the c…

A Shining City: The Occupy Movement and the American Soul

By Elizabeth Drescher

…gress, economic hope, and nascent global expansionism. Women wore shiny off-the-shoulder dresses and ridiculously high-heeled shoes. They sipped from splits of cheap sparkling wine while their tuxedoed companions swilled the local brew, Budweiser—that, too, a faded American icon, sold off in 2008 to the Belgium-based multinational, InBev. No, of course, these were not the protesters who have begun to appear in more and more American cities, but ke…