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Are You There God? It’s Us, Googling

By Michael Schulson

…an—50% correct!—and it knows that I’m searching from an IP address in East Tennessee). Advertising comes into play here, too. When I asked Google “Why does God allow suffering?” the first hit was a sponsored result for the website of David Jeremiah, a conservative evangelical preacher in California. Do these websites actually shape people’s responses to deep theological questions? Can search results and search engine optimization influence the bel…

Reverend Billy For Mayor: Is He For Real?

By Nathan Schneider

…dramatized in the play-turned-film The Night of the Iguana, by his cousin, Tennessee Williams. At the time, remembers Lanier, he was “mostly traveling in the opposite direction from the Church.” After seeing Talen perform, Lanier took him out to lunch and said, remembers Talen, “We need a new kind of American preacher.” Lanier convinced him that in order to speak relevantly to American politics and society, one has to understand its religion. They…

It’s Not Just About Ground Zero

By Mark S. Byrnes

…site. Protests have also greeted another proposed mosque in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and it became something of an issue in the recent Republican gubernatorial primary. While campaigning, Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey (who lost the primary) said: “Now, you could even argue whether being a Muslim is actually a religion, or it is a nationality, way of life, cult whatever you want to call it.” One of the opponents of the California mosque parrots that line in…

Of God, But Not God: A Methodist Minister Speaks About Church’s Refusal to Open Its Doors to LGBT

By Joel Pitney

…ere not companionship-based. They were economic arrangements. Okay, that’s number 1. Number 2, let’s say that your wife didn’t provide you with a male offspring. A man could take another wife and another wife and another wife until one of them did. This is the “sanctity of marriage” that is being protected. Are you kidding me? Wow. Okay, so that’s Old Testament. Then along comes Jesus. Well for those of us who follow Jesus, I always like to point…

The Religious Right’s Apocalyptic Visions of an Obama Presidency

By Bill Berkowitz

…ny time during the day. Gun ownership is outlawed in eight states and “the number is growing with increasing Democratic control of state legislatures and governorships.” Home schooling has been “severely restricted” thanks to the lobbying efforts of the National Education Association. Anonymous points out that although President Obama “expressed strong personal disapproval” of many of the Supreme Court decisions that have brought about these chang…

Report from Paris During COP21: Let Us Not Commit Global Suicide

By Donna Schaper

…et. The Kyoto Protocol, which commits industrialized countries to internationally binding emission reduction targets, was the first climate treaty to emerge from this process. It was passed at COP3 in December 1997 at Kyoto, Japan and came into force in February 2005 when a sufficient number of developed countries signed the agreement; the United States did not, hampering negotiations for the next decade. A successor agreement, involving all count…

Prosperity Gospel and Foreclosure

By Sarah Posner

…make a “Passover offering.” Seven is a biblically significant number, the number of completion and perfection, and in this spring of 2007 the Praise-a-thon began on Easter Sunday, the seventh day of Passover. If you make the Passover offering, Munsey claims, God will give you seven blessings: God will dispatch an angel to lead miracles; rid you of your enemies; bless you with prosperity; heal you; give you longevity; give you an inheritance you k…

The Pundits and the Dominionists

By Julie Ingersoll

…any other name) a Reconstructionist? And as Gerson noted in his essay, the number of people who can be labeled in this way would “fit in a phone booth.” (Actually there are significantly more than he recognizes, but I take his point.) My point, though, is that this is the wrong question. Far more interesting, I think, is to look at the influence of Christian Reconstruction; how has it impacted the style of the conservative Christianity that makes…

Malawi Catholic Bishops Call For Enforcement of Sodomy Law; Ukrainian Thugs Disrupt Equality Festival Opposed by Orthodox Church; Indonesian Islamists Continue Rhetorical War on LGBTs; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…he Opera Theatre to be banned. The European Court of Human Rights has on a number of occasions found that the likelihood of counter-events does not justify restricting citizens right to peaceful assembly. The regional police also asked for the ban, although it is they who are obliged to protect all citizens exercising their right to gather. Indonesia: Anti-Gay Islamists Continue Rhetorical War On LGBTs Weeks of escalating anti-gay rhetoric in Indo…

Condemnation, Condolences in Wake of Orlando Massacre and More

By Peter Montgomery

…ings from Arab and Muslim governments with the countries’ legal regimes, a number of which punish homosexuality with death. A hacker identifying with Anonymous flooded some ISIS-related Twitter accounts with rainbow flags, gay porn, and fake “coming out” tweets. Mexico: Church driving down support for marriage equality; activists worry about threats In the weeks since President Enrique Peña Nieto announced plans to push for a constitutional change…