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Ryan-DeLauro’s Common Ground on Abortion is in Religious Territory

By Sarah Posner

…contentious issues like abortion and gay rights. It endorsed (at least in spirit) the then-existing version of the Ryan-DeLauro bill, and touted the blessing of evangelical figures who said they were rejecting the single-issue, rancorous politics of their religious right brethren. They would, they pledged, abandon the trench warfare of Roe v. Wade, and instead try to find practical solutions for reducing abortions. Stigmatizing Abortion? The relu…

The “Nones” Are Here… And Have Been for Over 100 Years

By Emily Mace

…n a Tuesday than on a Sunday; you may enter into larger communion with the spirit of nature in the woods or by the sea. You may! But, as a matter of fact, actually do you?” Wouldn’t it be better to attend any kind of service—even one as secular as theirs—to increase the chances of having that kind of uplift? Adler’s implied question raises a point still relevant to unaffiliated Americans of today: does a life without religious institutions offer t…

No Buddhists in Washington?

By Danny Fisher

…e might better understand the workings of his own mind and experience true spiritual awakening, once said simply, “I teach only suffering and the end of suffering.” So profound were his insights and those of his interlocutors throughout the ages, however, that modern psychologists and other caring professionals, particularly those in the United States, have found great utility in them. The emergence of such treatments as mindfulness-based stress r…

Selling the Idea of a Christian Nation: David Barton’s Alternate Intellectual Universe

By Paul Harvey

…evivals in Civil War Confederate camps, where men recaptured the Christian spirit of their founding forefathers. Like Weems, and like Barton, Jones was a traveling salesman, and pitched his product of American religiosity to a highly receptive Gilded Age audience seeking relief from the social conflicts of their day. And it would sound familiar, as well, to scores of conservative Christians in the nineteenth century who sought to protect the Prote…

Beyond Tolerance: Helping Religions “Come Out”

By Mychal Copeland

…how an LGBTQI identity could possibly coexist within a distinct religious, spiritual, or cultural framework. An underlying paradigm for these circles of support is the Hebrew word, “shalom.” Usually translated “peace,” the word comes from a root meaning “wholeness.” We cannot be at peace until we are completely whole, bringing the entirety of ourselves to our spiritual lives. The need for forums to explore intersections between sexual or gender id…

Civil Rights’ Roughneck Preacher, Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth (1922-2011)

By Anthea Butler

…made me think that he was the kind of man you’d want to have not only for spiritual advice, but to get you through a back alley bar fight as well. Yet he was also pleasant, and a great storyteller. Shuttlesworth did not shy away from living that hard history of racism over and over again in order to remind others of just how far the nation had come. Shuttlesworth’s life and Christian witness was a certain kind of spirituality: a rough-hewn, hard…

The Theological Terrors of Easter

By Jess Peacock

…up for his own wake. While I offer some of these reflections in an ironic spirit, I do think it’s important to acknowledge that religion and the horror genre are dueling narratives revolving around the unknown, of what lies beyond human reason and understanding. I would argue that one of the reasons The Walking Dead consistently draws tremendous ratings is that horror entertainment has emerged as another form of religious language. In some sense,…

This Year’s Best Books in African American Religion

By Jonathan L. Walton

…n. This book employs the tools of autobiography and narrative to trace the spiritual lives of three African Americans who ditched Afro-Protestantism for Islam, Judaism and Buddhism. Hart uses these figures to show how complex, sensually erotic and religiously creative spiritual experience can be. But most importantly, he reinforces the overarching point that black religion is wherever and does whatever any African American person may be doing at a…

Wilma Mankiller: On the Passing of a Legendary Leader

By Johnny P. Flynn

…h, and optimism. –Wilma Mankiller Wilma Mankiller began her journey to the spirit world on Tuesday April 6, 2010, due to complications from pancreatic cancer. The legendary chief of the largest Indian nation in North America served for ten years from 1985–1995 as the first woman Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. Her life and struggles can tell the story of many American Indian activists who came to social consciousness in the tur…

A Valentine for the World…and for the Church I Left

By Carolyn S. Briggs

…gs. I worship the Creator of an amazingly beautiful, diverse, and exciting planet. It’s obvious the hand of God is everywhere and always has been. Is that enough common ground for peace between us? Don’t answer. I’m afraid it’s not. Dogma is a Dealbreaker Here’s a little story. When my ex-husband and I became Christians almost forty years ago, we were ecstatically happy and in love with each other, other Christians, sinners, you name it. He was ov…