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A Peek Inside the ‘Onion’ of Scientology

By Kristin Rawls

…re very, very involved and very wealthy. There are many who are extraordinarily rich who have nothing to do with the movie industry. Those kinds of people are considered celebrities, and they’re treated differently too, but real [Hollywood] celebrities like Haggis are treated like gold. They are the public face of the Church, so you want them to have the best possible experience, so you won’t be punitive. Current Scientologists and ex-Scientologi…

Evangelical Pastor Argues for Full LGBT Inclusion: “I Think It’s Inevitable”

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…lier time. The story is so familiar, in fact, that it is actually in the Christian scriptures. Paul’s ancient answers to congregational controversies inform a new book written by Ken Wilson, an evangelical pastor in Michigan. In A Letter to My Congregation Wilson argues that the ancient issues of food and Sabbath are analogous to today’s moral struggle over the rightful place of LGBT people in both church and society. As a pastor in a conservative…

Naked Jihad

By Kate Blanchard

…, rape, or even murder her. At the same time, I sympathized with Muslimah Pride’s irritation at Western feminist arrogance, and felt somewhat ashamed. We are always so ready to pounce when non-Western women are threatened. Indeed, as scholar Lila Abu-Lughod points out, even Americans who are not feminists—often on religious grounds—seem ready to fight wars in the Middle East, ostensibly in order to “save” oppressed Muslim women. Moreover, I tend t…

How Fitbit Helps a Conservative Evangelical College Monitor Students’ Bodies For Christ

By Jonathan Root

…s infringing on students’ privacy. As it turns out, Fitbits can record calories burned during sex—which created a minor scandal in 2011 when users realized that their sexual activity could be discovered through a simple Google search. This puts ORU students in an awkward position, argues Keri Paul, since their university prohibits premarital sex. Is this the story, as the media narrative would have it, of a naive Christian college getting seduced…

The Internet Is Not Killing Religion, Religion is Killing Religion

By Elizabeth Drescher

…’s first European century, then, traditionally thought of as exclusively Puritan, Christian practice not only proved insecure but showed dangerous signs of declining rather than rising. Colonialism, against its own Christianizing designs was, it seems, killing religion. It didn’t get much better well after the Revolution, either, as the United States grew in population, global prestige, and wealth. Writing in 1910 about The Spiritual Unrest that c…

Was Ghana Anti-Gay Scare Just Politics?

By Warren Throckmorton

…ps united to call on the Ghanaian government for action against sexual minorities. Both Christian and Muslim coalitions have declared that they will not support a politician who favors relaxing the laws covering homosexuality. Then, on July 20, Ghana’s Minister for the Western Region publicly questioned the existence of 8,000 sexual minorities but called for arrests if they are discovered. Minister Paul Evans Aidoo, told a Ghanaian radio interview…

6 Overlooked Takeaways From a Reviewer of Controversial Texas Textbooks

By David R. Brockman

…0, in what RD’s Lauri Lebo aptly called the “Texas Textbook Massacre,” a Christian Right bloc on the SBOE pushed through curriculum standards promoting Christian Americanism, an ideology claiming that, as Mark Chancey writes,1 “America was founded to be a Christian nation governed by Bible-based laws, that the country has tragically departed from its roots, and that it should reclaim its Christian heritage.” The 2014 adoption process marked the fi…

Fasting and Faithy Friends of Convenience

By Sarah Posner

…our collective welfare, not for the wealthiest thousand or even million Americans but for a vast majority of us in the United States and, indeed, for citizens of the world who have difficulty making ends meet. Or feeding their kids.” Amen to that, no doubt. But the whole fasting effort—no matter how inspirational, either religiously or secularly, it is to many people—demonstrates the tepid, pointless, and often counterproductive marriage of conven…

Demonized and Demonizing No More.

By Joanna Brooks

…presented in the most dominant atheist narratives. How would you characterize narrative American atheism has told about itself? If we actually asked atheists to historicize themselves as a movement, to tell a collective story, what would that sound like? Though there is a fascinating history of American atheism, it’s hard to answer that question right now. We’re a small and frequently demonized community, and there has not been a lot of fluidity…

Episcopal Conference Lives Up to Episcopal Jokes

By Julie Ingersoll

…hemed, “One Body,” which began with a service led by presiding bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori calling for unity. In recent years the convention has been tense with debates over the future of the diocese and even the Church itself. But this year, “nothing much happened,” according to a friend of mine who was a delegate. “The most contentious issue voted on had to do with something about priests’ retirement,” and he abstained on that one. This sa…