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Claremont and the Agony of the Seminaries

By Daniel Schultz

…rgy (i.e., Christians, Jews and Muslims): In a terse statement Friday, the United Methodist University Senate announced that it had rescinded a public warning and restored funding to the school, which will remain affiliated with the church. The senate oversees all Methodist-affiliated seminaries. Claremont President Jerry Campbell said the change of heart came after the school managed to allay fears “that we were turning a United Methodist-related…

American Supports Ugandan Anti-Gay Bill

By Michael Wilkerson

…people with homosexual lifestyles,” he preached. Still, as he does in the United States, he insisted that homosexuality harms society: “We are trying to restrain an agenda that is going to hurt the nation and hurt families.” In addition to homosexuality, Engle preached against abortion and child sacrifice and repeatedly praised Uganda for its piety. “I think that Uganda is beyond the U.S. in their stand for righteousness,” Engle commented to repo…

Fear of a Catholic Ghetto

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…o” is not cheap hyperbole, if you consider the history of Catholics in the United States. The US Catholic hospital system grew up in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries; largely under the care of women’s religious orders, and largely to serve the poor. (Read about a few of the women who helped build Catholic health care.) The surrounding cultural landscape could be profoundly, hatefully anti-Catholic. Catholics found their rituals…

Is Religion Wrecking Our Air?

By Jay Wexler

…ants not to use illegal fireworks in the United Arab Emirates. Even in the United States, some critics have called for the federal government to regulate fireworks, rather than exempting them from the ambit of the Clean Air Act. The EPA has refused, claiming that “Congress did not intend to require EPA to consider air-quality violations associated with such cultural traditions in regulatory determinations.” Although most people probably conjure up…

New Report Shows Dems are Far More Religiously Diverse Than GOP — Though One (A)religious Group Remains Woefully Underrepresented

By Chrissy Stroop

…argely untouched by two trends that have long marked religious life in the United States: a decades-long decline in the share of Americans who identify as Christian, and a corresponding increase in the percentage who say they have no religious affiliation.” Specifically, the new Congress’s membership is over 87% Christian, while Christians currently make up only 63% of the population. Not only are Protestants overrepresented at 56.7% of the Congre…

Nxivm Scam Is Dead, but ‘Brainwashing’ Pseudoscience Lives On

By James T. Richardson

…generally accepted in relevant disciplines. Then, in a key criminal case, United States v. Fishman (1990), Singer and sociologist Richard Ofshe, the two strongest proponents of “brainwashing” theories in legal actions, were seeking to testify on behalf of Stephen Fishman, who was charged with mail fraud. Fishman had been a member of the Church of Scientology and claimed he was “brainwashed” into committing certain acts. The judge in the case revi…

2021 National Prayer Breakfast: A Kinder Gentler Christian Capitalism

By Becky Garrison

…ralistic with nones representing the largest religious voting block in the United States. Rob Boston of Americans United for Separation of Church and State opines, “While it was a relief this year not to see the breakfast descend into the kind of embarrassment it often was during the Trump years, that hardly means the event is worth saving. This year ought to be its last.” However, given President Biden’s endorsement by progressive faith leaders,…

Methodist Clergy Pledge to Defy Church in Blessing LGBT Unions

By Pamela R. Lightsey

…desire to be in lifelong relationships with loving partners? Last week, 70 United Methodist Clergy in Minnesota pledged to defy church polity against performing such ceremonies. This week, as of Thursday, 134 clergy in the Northern Illinois Conference have pledged the same. If they follow through with their pledge, they face the possibility of losing their clergy orders. It should be noted that losing one’s credentials is not simply losing the abi…

Conservatives Stoke Fear of Fifth Column

By Sarah Posner

…organizations were identified as unindicted co-conspirators in a case the United States brought against the Holy Land Foundation, which earlier this year was found guilty of illegally financing Hamas. In 2008, the government introduced a document as an exhibit to a brief — contrary to Department of Justice policy — publicly identifying these alleged “unindicted co-conspirators.” The policy is not to publicly identify unindicted co-conspirators be…

Debate Over Mother Earth’s ‘Rights’ Stirs Fears of Pagan Socialism

By Bron Taylor

…I contend that the recent developments in Ecuador, Bolivia, and within the United Nations are as American as apple pie: they are to some extent in the spirit of a diverse range of American voices that led to the pioneering Endangered Species Act of 1973 signed into law by Richard Nixon. Yet today, those who call themselves conservative are generally hostile to environmentalists, often considering them to be politically or spiritually dangerous so…