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Refusing Religion, Claiming the Future: A Roundtable Discussion on “The Nones Are Alright”

By Peter Laarman

…after the millennials suggest high levels of religiosity as well). African Americans in general, and African-American women in particular, are among the most religious groups in the nation. So, even though black youth may be expressing their dissatisfaction with the orthodoxies and dysfunction of the black church, they are not, by and large, abandoning these traditions wholesale. This has a lot to do with the role the black church—for good or for…

With Christian Schools At Risk In Israel, Crickets from American Christian Conservatives

By Sarah Posner

…situation “a ‘death sentence’ for Christian schools in Israel.” Given the American Christian right’s interest in religious freedom, particularly for Christians, and particularly in the Middle East, where Christians are enduring and fleeing persecution, one might expect a massive outcry over this. Just imagine the objections to unequal treatment, by any government, of any Christian organization. But when I reached out to three major conservative C…

#SorryNotSorry: What U.S. Christian Denominations Teach About Homosexuality

By Stephanie Russell-Kraft

…ed.” 83% of members believe homosexuality should be accepted by society. American Baptist Churches USA (Mainline Protestant) Members (as of 2009): 1,310,505 In 1992, the American Baptist Churches USA General Board affirmed a one-sentence resolution on homosexuality: “American Baptist Resolution on Homosexuality”: “We affirm that the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.” In 2005, the board added the same language to…

Inside the American Family Association

By Sarah Posner

Today’s Times piece on the American Family Association frames AFA’s hosting of the Rick Perry prayer rally, The Response, as its assertion of itself as a player in presidential politics. But AFA founder Don Wildmon has long been a part of a group of religious right activists who hosted “policy briefings” to introduce GOP candidates to pastors; in 2008, the group zeroed in on Mike Huckabee, who was shunned by many GOP and conservative activists. W…

When Children’s Literature is Not Defined by “Innocence”

By Jodi Eichler-Levine

…945 to the present, Jewish and African Americans were grafted into greater American civic acceptance through their children’s stories—especially those stories with overtones of suffering, exodus, and sacrifice—in modes that have long been part of the grand narratives of American religious history. I don’t say that to degrade those narratives or to promote them—but to notice how they are always with us, and how memory work is a practice, and a very…

Put Your Money Where Your Mind Is: A For-Profit Meditation Studio Opens in New York

By Michael Schulson

…w tweaks, Buddhist practices of mindfulness meditation fit right into this American tradition. Since the 1970s, Americans have used quiet, awareness-based contemplative practices to calm and focus their minds. Much of this is thanks to Jon Kabat-Zinn, the creator of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), an eight-week course. Kabat-Zinn studied mindfulness meditation under the Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh, but he has emphasized the psychological a…

“You Lie!”: Messing with American Mass

By Ben Brazil

…a long way towards explaining the outrage felt by legislators and by many Americans. The president was not speaking to a labor union in Ohio or to teachers in Florida—he was speaking to a joint session of Congress, a ritualized setting that invokes all the sacredness of the democratic government of the United States of America. Americans tend to watch such speeches together—as families, in restaurants, in bars. For a few moments, a significant po…

The Myth of ‘Voodoo’: A Caribbean American Response to Representations of Haiti

By Dianne M. Stewart

…d’s good nature is reflected in the slave trade, what was the Devil up to? American ignorance of Vodou beliefs and practices aside, I am befuddled by Robertson’s lack of reflection on what his tall tale of Haiti’s unpaved road to hell inevitably registers about the nature of the Christian God. Where was the almighty Christian God when Haiti’s founding patriots and defenders of human liberty allegedly “swore a pact to the devil?” There is something…

If the Media Are Reluctant to Properly Label the GOP’s Racist, Christian Nationalist Ideologies, We’ll Have Trouble Hanging on to Democracy

By Annika Brockschmidt

…le to be independent.” The statement that mainly focusing on the threat to American democracy as a news organization would make it “partisan” is bizarre—and a result of the media’s fetishization of “bipartisanship,” long after it has ceased to exist, because Republicans have refused to engage in regular politics within the bounds of democracy. If being “partisan” when it comes to the existence of democracy is a problem for news organizations, they…

Loving Uganda to Death: The Global Reach of Far-Right Christian Hatred

By Peter Montgomery

…biggest megachurch in Uganda, the high-living pastor is quite frank that “American money helped us build this church,” adding, “whatever you see here is the fruit of American labor.” In another clip, a pastor marvels that aid from U.S. evangelicals increased threefold when they started attacking homosexuality. Churches’ financial success brings added clout to anti-gay pastors like Martin Ssempa—who drives his congregation into a frenzy by showing…