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Democrats Have Seized the Narrative Frame From the GOP, But Can They Find a Better Story to Tell About an Inclusive, Pluralist US?

By Chrissy Stroop

…ish,” and “out of touch,” to wowing Americans with heartwarming narratives about family and freedom. Republican attempts to take back the momentum by defending VP-candidate JD Vance’s misogynistic barbs about “childless cat ladies” and mocking Gus Walz (Tim Walz’s neurodivergent son) for showing emotion as he watched his dad speak, have only managed to make Republicans look even more out of touch—like people you wouldn’t want to have a beer with (…

Purity Culture is Also About National Purity: Anti-Asian Hate and Purity Culture [Audio]

By Bradley Onishi

…culture is about more than bodily purity. It’s about national purity. It’s about racial purity. It’s about ethnic purity. Okay. So if we bring all these things together, we have a man who seems like he was brought up in youth group purity culture in a church. That was probably—and I’ve tried to check this out and the sites are down because the church doesn’t want people looking at them. But by all accounts, the church is predominantly white. So an…

Senators Can and Must Ask About Nominees’ Religious Beliefs

By Andrew L. Seidel

…gay relationships were immoral or sinful. Booker wasn’t just grilling Rao about religion, he was asking about her ability to be a fair and impartial judge. But our Constitution bans religious tests! Almost every denunciation—including those by Ted Cruz, Tulsi Gabbard, Michael Gerson’s hyperbolic op-eds, Fox News, Ben Sasse, and more—relies on Article VI of the Constitution. Article VI is sublime. First, it declares the Constitution the “supreme l…

Evangelical Author on Why Christian Conservatives Supported Trump

By Eric C. Miller

…u seem amenable to the idea that a lot of white evangelicals were so angry about Obama and the last eight years that they were willing to support just about anyone to get the Democrats out of the White House. So, as the saying goes, they “held their noses” and voted Trump. But political scientists have investigated this claim, and found that “Evangelicals who voted for Trump felt the same level of warmth for him as did other Trump voters.” Have th…

The Woody Allen Problem: How Do We Read Pacifist Theologian (and Sexual Abuser) John Howard Yoder?

By Stephanie Krehbiel

…and it’s way too much work. It’s just kind of disgusting to have to write about this and bum everyone out when you just want to review a record.” Journalists who cover arts and entertainment may be far out of their element when it comes to writing about sexual abuse. Perhaps that’s at least a partial explanation for why public discussions of accused artists devolve so quickly into the ickiest varieties of victim-blaming. It’s what fills the expla…

What If Animals Believe in God?

By Andrew Aghapour

…power religious communities to go through their own process of discernment about what they believe about animals and to then get active. The most developed project of this is called the Jewish Initiative for Animals, which just launched in January. We provide resources to Jewish institutions to allow them to look at where their food comes from and then ask, collectively, about what counts as “ethical food.” What does it mean to treat a chicken wel…

Istanbul ‘Haven of Sorts’ For LGBT Syrians and Iraqis; Cayman Islands Affirm Marriage Ban with ‘Holy Bible Evidence’; No Room for LGBTs in Malaysia’s ‘Islam-Based’ Human Rights Policy; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…to just two. But that was not before the mayor had ignited a lively debate about the right of educators to choose their teaching tools without political interference, and about Italy’s continuing struggle with broadening civil rights for gays. Brugnaro is unapologetic, saying his action was fulfilling a campaign pledge opposing the “cultural arrogance” of the previous administration. Povoledo says many of the books have yet to make it into the lib…

What the Latest ‘God’s Not Dead’ Gets Egregiously Wrong — and Right — About Homeschooling

By R.L. Stollar

…s, it was panned by critics who argued that the film offered banal cliches about non-Christians and atheism. Pure Flix nonetheless ran full-steam ahead, cranking out three sequels in the span of 7 years, each depicting a slight variation of what is essentially the same evangelical persecution fantasy. God’s Not Dead 2 (2016) featured the persecution of a public high school teacher who dares to mention Jesus in her classroom; God’s Not Dead 3: A Li…

Queer Nuns: Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence Are ‘Serious Parody,’ Forcing us to Redefine Nuns

By Melissa Wilcox

…er and trans folks are religious, or that the most important thing to know about religion and LGBTQ communities is what the straight and cisgender people think about us. Also connected to this assumption is the idea that one can work in this subfield without any significant preparation, despite the existence of decades of scholarship by highly trained and experienced scholars who have dedicated their careers to doing this work. On the other side o…

Complicating the Prosperity Gospel Story: A Microeconomics of Pentecostalism, International Edition

By Naomi Haynes

…r the book. So, the current title gives you a reasonable idea of what it’s about. How do you feel about the cover? I love it! So many books about Pentecostalism have covers featuring people in rapt worship, and I was really grateful to move away from that trope. My brother John, who is a photographer by profession, took the cover photo when he came to visit me in Zambia. I always find taking pictures difficult, so I was grateful to have someone th…