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Dispatches From the Beltway: Horton Hears Progressive Religion

By Robert P. Jones

…. And he found himself in a swirl of controversy: the IRS placed a lien on him and his wife for failure to pay $22,269 in income taxes and penalties from 2002 to 2004; his church and the school and hotel it owns showed a net operating loss of $1.5 million for its fiscal year ending in June 2007; official complaints were filed against his church for violating its tax-exempt status in backing Blackwell’s campaign; and although neither he nor the chu…

“Americans Hate Muslims, Too” (And Other Impediments to U.S. Advocacy for Religious Freedom Abroad)

By Chad Bauman

…re more frequent expressions of concern not only for Muslims, but also for Hindus, Buddhists, and other non-Christians suffering persecution around the world. And it will require symbolically potent action, like President Obama’s recent visit to a Baltimore mosque (which, incidentally, was also reported in national Indian media). For those who truly care about religious freedom in India (and the United States), such efforts are not only justified….

US Names Int’l Envoy for LGBT Rights; Marriage revolution spreads in Mexico; Scott Lively Warns World of Anti-Christ; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…for marriage equality. “They are looking for a different kind of relationship which would be called marriage; a relationship which includes some elements of marriage, such as love and commitment, but excludes one of the two essential aspects of marriage, which is the openness of their sexual relationship to procreation. “This is only possible if we change the meaning of marriage and remove that aspect of openness to procreation. Joey Kavanagh, a…

Book Bannings Are Bad Enough, But Where Those Involved Are Considered Demonic, the Stakes Could Get Much Higher

By Frederick Clarkson

…vely sponsored by the Charisma Media empire of NAR Apostle Steven Strang. This is no small thing since the founding convener of NAR, the late Apostle C. Peter Wagner, was a fan of the 15th century Italian Dominican friar, Girolamo Savonarola, who staged what came to be known as the “bonfire of the vanities.” Wagner wrote in his 2008 book Dominion! How Kingdom Action Can Change the World, that “after Savonarola prayed and prophesied”: “The wicked c…

Lessons Learned this Ramadan

By Amina Wadud

…idea of suhbah: companionship for the sake of Allah. But, and here’s the thing I got this year: people are different. It is really, really worth it to encourage yourself and others with whom you are comfortable to increase your ibadah or worship. I mean, just because people are worshipping Allah does not mean you are going to be on the same page. I prayed tarawih regularly at the mosque closest to my home but nothing resembling companionship ever…

Facebook: Internet Highway to Hell

By Anthea Butler

…rst love: Jesus. So I am not surprised that the pastor is demanding all of his leadership cease and desist from Facebook. After all, looking up an old flame or your teenage dream à la Katy Perry is just the first step down the road to perdition — especially if your home life isn’t exactly what it used to be. What is interesting to me is that the conservative Christian cry used to be stop watching porn on the internet, or that your kids would be pi…

How an Ancient Story of Renegade Rabbis Caught With Black Market Technology Can Help Us Navigate ChatGPT’s Apocalyptic Aura

By Sara Tillinger Wolkenfeld

…ther than lose knowledge to the inconsistencies of human memory. Yet even while accepting this technological shift, they make sure to place value on the human transmission that’s being at least partially replaced by this change. We can negotiate a non-apocalyptic future of living with AI only by having open and honest conversations about this tension. Successfully navigating what seems like an earth-shattering transition depends not on creating “g…

Obama’s Muslim Strategy 2.0

By Haroon Moghul

…a Muslim-majority state. In fact, America is the most relevant: We are the hinge at which Muslim-minority and -majority meet. It’s a fascinating, controversial, and confusing mix of short-term power politics predicated on presumed long-term trends, wedding through American resources the potential capacities of Muslim-majority states and the mobile potency of transnational Muslim networks. For the Muslim-majority world, Obama’s choice is to strengt…

A Journalist in Church, Hiding in Plain Sight

By Andre Tartar

…st literarily—of a world with unanswerable questions and godly mysteries. While this hasn’t lessened my skepticism in the more rigid interpretations of (supposedly) sacred texts—physically written millennia ago by human, not divine, hands—I want to hope that I’m now within hollering distance of that moment or point when belief becomes faith. Close enough, in fact, that when I recently grasped hands with a modern-day Apostle (as Valdemiro Santiago,…

Why I Won’t Leave the Mormon Church Alone

By Holly Welker

…who leave it are broken in some fundamental way—though the exact means by which this is proven is never clearly established. This at least is true: although I stopped attending the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1989, I continue to study and write about it—and I can explain why. The LDS church was an integral part of my early life. I grew up in a tiny community in Arizona so Mormon that activities at the public school were often he…