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Public Religion in a Post-Christian Age, Graduation Edition

By David Gushee

…ite diverse public high school here in Atlanta. Both went to baccalaureate services and graduation exercises. At none of these four events was any kind of religious expression attempted, not even at the baccalaureate services held at local churches. I was also struck by the lack of any kind of patriotic or ethical exhortation. The graduation events were primarily memorable for their extraordinary speed. Lacking anything much to say, school leaders…

Perry’s Galileo Moment

By Sarah Posner

…‘intelligent design’ and ‘creation science.’” Josh Rosenau of the National Center for Science Education says that the same strategies are now being directed at attacking the science of climate change. For his research, Sherkat analyzed responses to 13 questions on scientific fact and reasoning from the 2006 General Social Survey, collected at the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. The questions really are quite basic: o…

National Endowment for the Arts is Funding “Pornography”—Again!

By Bill Berkowitz

…en Center for the Study of Popular Culture (now the David Horowitz Freedom Center), Martin Mawyer’s Christian Action Network, or Donald Wildmon’s American Family Association. My personal favorite direct mail package — sent by the American Family Association — contained a smallish envelope warning supporters to look inside at their own risk. Inside the envelope was a series of Robert Mapplethorpe photos. Controversial artists in one way or another…

Oral Roberts, Pioneering Televangelist, Dies

By Anthea Butler

…ool, and hospital. Believing that God had divinely inspired him to build a center where the cure for cancer would be discovered, Roberts took the principles embedded in Pentecostal divine healing and put them into pragmatic practice by building the City of Faith. Constantly dunning for money to build the center, it was the vision of a 900-foot-tall Jesus as a sign to Roberts that would place media scrutiny on his ministry in an uncomfortable way….

In Markets We Trust

By Peter Laarman

…elf in our unseemly desire to enshrine the money-changing cult at the very center of the temple. This past summer I took much pleasure in reading Jack Beatty’s Age of Betrayal: The Triumph of Money in America, 1865-1900. Beatty’s meticulously researched volume reminded me that the money changers have attempted to seize democracy’s temple before—that by the late 1880s the railroad barons in particular could work their will with little or no resista…

Equal Protection of First Amendment

By Lauri Lebo

With all the talk lately about Islam and the whole mosque/cultural center existing two blocks from the fallen World Trade Center, a lot of Christians have been defending their opposition to the location because they say Islam doesn’t qualify under the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause. They argue that passages in the Koran teach that infidels should be killed and so it can’t be considered a true religion. So, I’ve been thinking. Maybe Christ…

By the Way: John the Baptist?

By Randall Balmer

…altar, with the pulpit on the side, whereas in a Baptist church the visual center is the pulpit; the altar (or “communion table”) is rarely used. Accordingly, the climax of the worship service in a Baptist church is the sermon, while everything in Episcopal worship culminates in the Holy Eucharist. If the pews are filled, you’re probably in a Baptist church. Sadly, if there are a lot of empty seats and a lot of grey hair, it’s likely you stumbled…

Religious Hostility to Gay Nigerians; The Pope’s Visit To Africa; Ireland’s Religious Schools Can’t Discriminate Against Gays; Orthodox Church in Georgia Leads Anti-Gay Forces; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…African institution in Africa,” says Gina Zurlo, associate director of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts. “When people are looking at Catholicism, they can say, ‘I can still be African and Catholic at the same time.’ You don’t have to become Western.” … Africa looks set to remain the Catholic Church’s beacon of hope for the foreseeable future. The CARA report predicts that by 20…

Crisis Pregnancy Centers and Obama’s Faith-Based Initiative

By Sarah Posner

…ces) to push federal funding for ultrasound equipment for crisis pregnancy centers. Sheppard: Crisis pregnancy centers—often run by religious groups—received $30 million from HHS between 2001 and 2006 for abstinence-only programs and other projects, according to a 2006 House Energy and Commerce Committee report. The HHS grant database indicates another $9.3 million in grants were given to CPCs since 2007. But even the Obama administration has cont…

In Tea Party Senate Candidate’s Dissertation, A Nostalgia for a Populist Christian Nation

By Sarah Posner

…one in which religion—and, more critically, “elite” dismissal of it—takes center stage in the story of America and the rise of the modern conservative movement. In 2004’s “The Anti-Madalyn Majority: Secular Left, Religious Right, and the Rise of Reagan’s America,” Sasse argues that journalists and historians have misapprehended, and indeed misreported, the story of the rise of the modern religious right. His historical marker is not placed—as man…