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Do Atheists Belong in the Interfaith Movement?

By Chris Stedman

…interfaith conferences and groups many times, and I often open with this line: “Let’s get one thing out of the way—atheism and humanism aren’t a religion.” Not once have I had anyone disagree with me. To atheists concerned about being seen as “just another faith” and worried that interfaith isn’t an avenue for substantive discourse: I encourage you to give it a shot anyway, and be vocal about where you stand. I cannot begin to recount all of the t…

Teach Your Children Well: Challenging Religion-Based Sexism

By Sikivu Hutchinson

…thought and abolitionism during the 19th century, white feminist atheist Ernestine Rose was smeared as being a “thousand times below a prostitute.” Centuries after Rose, the association of faith with female virtue and morality is still pervasive in our post-feminist post-racial Christian nation. Indeed, for some women of color, being “married to Jesus” is the only lifeline to genuine personal and spiritual validation. As Anthea Butler has noted, “…

Infanticide Still Not a Growing Movement: 30 Years of Pro-Life Fudging

By Daniel Silliman

…infanticide. Links are then shared and re-shared regularly in on- and offline social networks. The most recent example popping up on social media is a report from Mairead McArdle, a student at Thomas Aquinas College who writes for the right-wing site the College Fix. McArdle reports there is a new trend seen “on campuses nationwide.” College students are increasingly in favor of infanticide, or “post-birth abortion.” They say a woman has the right…

The Religious Right and the Tea Party on “Education Choice”

By Julie Ingersoll

…this case, the teachers’ union) gave the pro-charter forces the boost they needed. The New York Times recently reported on the tie between the hostility to unions and the variety of anti-public school measures across the nation, fostered by the tea party group Freedom Works. Privatizing public education (and ultimately eliminating it) has long been a goal of the religious right and it has, really for the first time, become a viable possibility, th…

The 50 Shades of Evangelicalism

By Jonathan D. Fitzgerald

…imous and uncritical evangelical support of Israel as epitomized by a 2006 New York Times headline noting that, “For Evangelicals, Supporting Israel Is ‘God’s Foreign Policy.’” Just last month, Christianity Today featured a review of Caitlin Carenen’s The Fervent Embrace, in which Wheaton College professor Gary Burge took issue with the author’s broad categorization of evangelicalism as unilaterally Zionist, noting that “It is frustrating to see o…

Good News: Religious Outreach Works On Vaccine Hesitancy. Bad News: We Need It.

By Daniel Schultz

…Americans agree with the idea that getting vaccinated is a way of loving one’s neighbor, 44% don’t, with lesser-educated respondents much more likely to disagree. African Americans are also more likely than other demographics to disagree, which makes some sense. If you’re not sure you trust the vaccination, it’s hard to see it as an act of service to your neighbor. Another angle may prove more fruitful. As the study notes, Americans who say that…

The Internet Is Not Killing Religion, Religion is Killing Religion

By Elizabeth Drescher

…crisis” in the New World: Pennsylvania aside, the Restoration colonies of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and North and South Carolina exhibited extraordinary spiritual discord and sectarianism as well as a remarkable but all too familiar indifference to things spiritual. In America’s first European century, then, traditionally thought of as exclusively Puritan, Christian practice not only proved insecure but showed dangerous signs of declining r…

Pope Denounces Gender Colonization; Indonesian Court Considers Islamist Request To Criminalize Homosexuality; Egypt’s Grand Mufti Says No One Has Right to Harm Homosexuals; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…ported content and the banning of original news reporting by non-state online media… Chinese literature documents centuries of gay men. But homosexuality was stigmatized after the Communist revolution in 1949, largely because it was associated with western decadence. Japan: Business community ‘tiptoes’ into LGBT issues The Japan Times reported on July 28 that the country’s business community is “increasingly showing support” for LGBT people, as ar…

PCUSA’s Nod to “Traditional” Marriage Understandable, but Not Accurate

By William E. Smith

…and sensibilities across the U.S to this day, broke with tradition and pioneered a new system. In The Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1520), for instance, Martin Luther wrote, “According to Leviticus 18, there are only twelve persons a man is prohibited from marrying: his mother, stepmother, full sister, half-sister by either parent, granddaughter, father’s or mother’s sister, daughter-in-law, brother’s wife, wife’s sister, stepdaughter, and…

A Peek Inside the ‘Onion’ of Scientology

By Kristin Rawls

…ssy legal history. They are notorious for spending tremendous amounts of money—not necessarily to win, but to fight. They tend to prevail because people eventually go, “Forget it. It’s too expensive. This ties us up for years.” This is their tactic, and it’s been very successful for them. Also, kids do not just decide to join the Sea Org and sign the contract and that’s it; their parents must sign a document too, in which they give the Church lega…