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Obama Signs Executive Order Making Changes to Faith-Based Office, but Frustrations Remain

By Sarah Posner

…ve Federal financial assistance may use their facilities to provide social services without removing or altering religious art, icons, scriptures, or other symbols from these facilities. In addition, a faith-based organization that participates in a social service program may retain religious terms in its name, select its board members on a religious basis, and include religious references in its organization’s mission statements and other charter…

California Inmates Protest the Abuse of Long-Term Solitary Confinement

By Sarah Sentilles

…there were a handful of control units across the country, according to the American Friends Service Committee. Today an estimated 44 states have supermax facilities, and “[as with the overall prison population, people of color are disproportionately represented in isolation units.” “In California, roughly 90 percent of the individuals in the Security Housing Units are people of color,” said Markle Downton. “For people of faith, for people of consc…

Ann Romney’s Big Night at the RNC

By Joanna Brooks

…s do: the acts of service performed for one another. Romney gave plenty of service as a lay pastoral leader for Boston-area congregations. But, as Ann Romney explained, “Mitt does not like to talk about how he has helped others because he sees it as a privilege, not a political talking point.” (Tagg Romney made a similar point earlier in the day about how Mormons are taught not to brag about acts of interpersonal service. This is an important way…

Progressive Faith Leaders Rally to Keep Heat on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

By Alex McNeill

…aders in the public square to amplify God’s call to remove the barriers to service for lesbian and gay people,” he continued. Well before the ruling, “faith leaders have been making their own congregants aware of how DADT harms gay and lesbian service members and also harms our country at a time when skilled members of the military are needed more than ever,” Knox said. However, advocacy on behalf of lesbian and gay servicemembers is not limited t…

Republicans Lead the Way
on Repeal of “Don’t Ask
Don’t Tell”

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…cked out under DADT. He called DADT a “cloud of fear” that gay and lesbian service members live under – a constant threat of being kicked out if their sexual orientation is revealed. People like Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council (and a marine vet, btw), wants to keep that cloud of fear hovering over gay and lesbian service members. He claims ending DADT will violate the religious liberty of chaplains. ”Chaplains will be muzzl…

Does The White House Get It?

By Sarah Posner

…rve openly in the military. The only group that has more opponents of open service than supporters is white evangelicals. That’s it. Even among all Republicans, 47% are in support, and 43% oppose. In all other religious groups, more than half support open service (except for black Protestants, who favor it 46% to 41%). Even among weekly church attenders (the mysterious gold standard for who the allegedly truly religious are), there’s 49%-40% suppo…

Recovering From Rejection: The Second Coming of Ted Haggard

By Wendy Norris

…rculated email, and on his blog. London reportedly told the Religious News Service of Haggard’s plans to hold prayer services, “When you think of the ethics of that, it, to me, just defies explanation.” Not to be left out of the media feeding frenzy, other high-profile pastors in the conservative evangelical Christian community quickly piled on. C. Peter Wagner, who co-founded the World Prayer Center with Haggard and is well known for the exorcism…

Community Organizing and Symbolic Electioneering

By Laura R. Olson

…ching, the Republicans mocked, dismissed, and actually laughed out loud at Americans who engage in community service and organizing.” This particular line of attack also seems to be galvanizing community organizers themselves to speak out in vigorous defense of their work. In short, the community-organizing crack may have launched a thousand ships of counter-mobilization. On the other hand, perhaps this portion of the Republicans’ symbolic attack…

Almost-Blockbuster Netflix Series ‘The Family’ Exposes a Christian Network Whose God Is Power

By Peter Laarman

…was able to do. While always professing Christian ideals of selflessness, service, and fellowship they created a readily available platform for use by various dictators and haters and murderers of whatever stripe and whatever faith. This is quite an achievement, you have to admit. In an early sequence, Jeff Sharlet is vetted to join a kind of Christian frat house called Ivanwald, essentially a youth indoctrination center maintained by The Fellows…

A Solstice Devotional for the Faithless in Trump’s America

By Sunnivie Brydum

…t to engage. Faith for the Faithless When I was a child, the Christmas Eve service at my family’s Lutheran church was always my favorite service of the year. The candles, the carols, and the quiet reverence soothed my soul, even as I drove myself and my little sister across town to switch between our divorced parents’ homes at the stroke of midnight. These days, neither of us goes to church, and my mother’s Pagan practices feel like the closest re…