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I Always Knew Santa Was Make-Believe: A Retired Pastor on Losing Her Faith

By Anne Grant

…ime. We were like fish that crawled onto land and, over eons, evolved into air-breathing, live-bearing, warm-blooded beings without knowing how that happened. During millions more years, some returned to the sea, where legs morphed into flippers instead of fins. They became dolphins, whales, and manatees. But they remained warm-blooded and still breathed air. Their tails lay horizontally and moved up and down, the way legs had propelled their ance…

Close Encounters

By Amina Wadud

…g, parasailing, and now faux flying in a wind tunnel. It’s true I love the air; I love rides in the amusement park that let me soar through the air. I’ll ride those bumpy exhilarating roller coasters, but my heart belongs to that elevated rotating swing that lets me whirl and whirl in the air, arms outstretched. Why this made me think about encounters with the Sacred, I imagine you can only guess. Some people do speak of moments that shake their v…

Does War Make Sense? Science and Religion on the Battlefield

By Nathan Schneider

…ts of the Muslim diaspora through cheap communications technology and easy air travel. Islamist military tactics (Web sites as command centers, commercial airplanes as weapons) developed not simply from Hollywood movies, as was so often claimed following the 2001 attacks, but from the experience that constitutes the Muslim sacred community. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is therefore at least partly right in insisting that spiritual and not merely materia…

Can Faith-Based Organizing for Gun Control Work?

By Sarah Posner

…ail the number of gun deaths in America, the number of mass shootings, the number of accidents, the number of suicides. The movement would have more than these grassroots activists. It would have willing politicians, a legal strategy, and lots of money. All of these components would work in tandem to change people’s minds, to pressure lawmakers, to intimidate politicians running for office, to go to court when necessary. With these political, legi…

How to Choose a Tour Company for Your Hajj

By Amina Wadud

…ears. I first tried to go on hajj from Egypt (in 1981-2) because the total airfare was like 250 US dollars. I had my air ticket before I applied for a visa locally. In the end, the quota prevented me from going, despite the “reasons” given. We don’t have a quota in the United States. So when I first went online to get general information (earlier this year while still in Indonesia listening to my friends’ incredulity), none of the US companies eve…

Lying About Our Religion, And Other Problems With Polling

By Michael Schulson

…g, Wuthnow writes, is “the phenomenon of drawing generalizations about the American public, meaning all of the American population, based on evidence that mostly reflects the sampled responses of the white majority.” Christian norming happens, too: a poll that supposedly reflects the nation’s views on God is, often, mostly talking about Christian views. In doing so, it’s essentially conflating “Christian” with “American,” a strategy typically asso…

Scientology: All-American or Aging Hoax?

By Gordon Haber

…ory than a supposition that the church is, to some extent, a reflection of American values. He also posits a number of broad questions (maybe too broad) about how we define religion in America and about “legal and theoretical issues in the study of religion.” In the interest of objectivity, Urban employs a simultaneous “hermeneutics of respect and hermeneutics of suspicion”—meaning that he takes Scientology’s religious claims at face value while…

Crisis in Sudan: ‘If the World Stands Idly By This Time, They Will Bring Genocide’

By Frederick Clarkson

…up through South Carolina to Washington DC. ______________________ RD: A number of American human rights experts have said that the killing and forced displacement of the Ngok Dinka people from Abyei in May, and their replacement by the Arab, northern-aligned Misseriya, constitutes “ethnic cleansing.” Is ethnic cleansing part of what is happening in Kadugli? Since 1983, many Nuba people have been killed in Lubba Village—men, women, even children…

Mike Johnson’s Porn-Monitoring isn’t Just ‘Creepy’ — it’s a Window to the Fascist Desire Driving the White Evangelical Will to Power

By Jessica Johnson

…to porn, not cured. If it can keep men coming back to use its products and services, it doesn’t require a large customer base. Similarly, White Christian supremacy’s strength is not in numbers, but in theological-political devotion and ferocity. On the spiritual battlefield against porn, Johnson is training his son to be a Christian fascist like himself. His fatherly pride over his son’s “clean slate” says more about his investment in Jack’s capac…

Like Azusa Street Baptized into Bureaucracy: Mexico’s Flourishing LLDM Church Loses its Apostle

By Michael Schulson

…Mundo diaspora, we were sitting in rows of chairs watching the Guadalajara service Livestreaming on a pair of TV monitors mounted to either side of the altar. LLDM members knew that Joaquín was ill, but the church had not previously described his condition as being quite so critical. After Lee Minemann made his announcement, the Livestream’s director cut to a wide-angle shot of the entire congregation. LLDM’s Guadalajara home church fits 15,000 pe…