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Who’s Scared of Polygamy? A Restrained Case for the “Slippery Slope” Argument

By William E. Smith

…d a second wife. He did so, moreover, only after getting the approval of a number of important Protestant theologians, including Martin Luther. This case and other developments around polygamy in the 16th and 17th centuries are chronicled by John Cairncross. What Lyndal Roper has said about experimenting with marriage in the Reformation holds true for our time too. We have been busy overhauling our marital system at least as thoroughly as happened…

Republicans “Evangelizing” Catholic Voters

By Patricia Miller

…Catholicism, is in many ways the most traditional Catholic of the sizeable number of Catholics jostling for the GOP nod. Bobby Jindal has labeled himself a “Catholic Evangelical” and even hosted “The Response,” a prayer extravaganza that amounts to a full-out paean to Christian nationalism. Rick Santorum has long courted the Christian right with his anti-abortion rhetoric and was once named by Time magazine as one of the nation’s “25 Most Influent…

The Great Secret of Constitutional Law: Why Proposition 8 Will (and perhaps should) Be Upheld

By Bruce Ledewitz

…of same-sex marriage, legislative reform efforts were gaining ground in a number of states. Granted, these were usually modest civil union compromises, but they were not sparking the kind of backlash that led to the Proposition 8 effort in California. Such statutory reform could have laid the foundation for further legal development toward full recognition of the right to marry. In retrospect, the federal courts were probably wise to avoid any su…

Awakening, Counter-Awakening, and the End of Church

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…xploring their spirituality in different ways.’ I think eventually a large number of those people will re-affiliate in some way, shape, or form—but when they do, the actual institutions of religion will be very different because of the demands those people make on new kinds of churches. I look at that whole arc of people who are leaving church because of the failure of the institution, and I don’t see that as threatening. I see that as a really ex…

5 Reasons You Shouldn’t Overthink the New Pew Data’s Impact on Politics

By Sarah Posner

…(down eight percent in seven years, to 70.6 percent), and the rise in the number of Americans identifying as atheist, agnostic, and otherwise religiously unaffiliated (up six points in seven years, to 22.8 percent). Greg Smith, Associate Director of Research at the Pew Research Center, called the pace of the continued growth of the religiously unaffiliated “really remarkable.” The number of Americans identifying with no religion grew by 19 millio…

More than Half of Mississippi GOP Primary Voters Believe the President is Muslim

By Sarah Posner

…ondents believe interracial marriage should be illegal; 24% of evangelicals did. Sixty-six percent of respondents in Mississippi do not believe in evolution; among evangelicals that number jumped to 74%. Of all the respondents, 29% believe interracial marriage should be illegal; among evangelicals that number was 33%….

For Buddhism, Science is Not a Killer of Religion

By Paul Wallace

…htenment Types On the surface, Buddhism can look pretty messy. There are a number of conflicting stories about the founder of the tradition. Many Buddhists consider Gautama Buddha to be divine, a savior of humanity, but some don’t. Some Buddhists barely think of him at all. And, despite scientific cosmology, there are a large number of mortal creatures—most of them non-human—inhabiting a spectacular 31-tiered cosmos, from the hell beings and hungr…

Muslims in America, Fifty Years Later: New Poll Shows Pride and Optimism In the Face of Bias

By Edward E. Curtis IV

…ength to believe in a better future. Muslim Americans also report that the number of non-Muslims who have been kind to them has risen in the past year. They believe in the American dream by a greater percentage than non-Muslim Americans. Over nine out of ten Muslims say that they are proud to be American. The question this poll raises for non-Muslims is: over the next fifty years, will our actions strengthen or weaken the surprising optimism of Mu…

Creeping Shari’ah… Ahem, Excuse Me… Biblical Law

By Julie Ingersoll

…he 4300 inmates already held within faith based programs by increasing the number of programs from four to six. While inmates in these facilitates choose the faith based programs over other options, it’s not, as proponents like to argue, fair to say that they choose to be there. Opponents of the plans argue that inmates in faith based programs enjoy a number of perks and better facilities than other inmates. But whatever the case, Scott’s plan wou…

Forget Right or Wrong

By Elizabeth Drescher

…Burning Man, to wholly idiosyncratic practices such as completing paint-by-number paintings of The Last Supper. Feeding the Poor, Housing the Homeless A 7-year study with nearly 15,000 undergraduates at 136 colleges and universities across the country by Alexander and Helena Astin of UCLA’s Center for Spirituality in Higher Education provides some clues to the shaping of contemporary American religious practice. The Astins’ work has shown that at…