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Atheists Ignore Islamophobia at their Peril

By Chris Stedman

…xtend that claim to other communities—especially ones facing frequent rhetorical and physical attacks. As a minority community in America’s religious milieu, it makes strategic sense for atheists to ally with Muslims, Sikhs, and others. But as a Humanist atheist, I feel a sense of moral obligation to stand up against identity-based hatred, no matter whom it’s directed at. Not only is it absurd to hope that people should care about the lack of acce…

Record Numbers Voted for More Death and More Racism; Can We Really Just Come Together as a Nation?

By Peter Laarman

…this time—after all of the atrocious and dangerous behavior—a significant number would turn away and vote for a return to conventional presidential leadership. Where are these defectors? As I write this, election boards around the country have already counted the votes of over 67 million people who want more death, more deception, and more openly racist and exclusionary public policies. And a huge number of these voters identify as Christian. And…

Why the Church is Struggling to Hold Onto Millennial Catholics

By Kaya Oakes

…y ignored some of its teachings on sexual issues (the increasingly smaller number of children born to Catholic families is empirical evidence of that)—their Catholicism may have always been a self-defined identity rather than a strident one. My So-Called Catholic Life Some Catholic millennials, however, cleave tightly to church teachings, and because many come from loosely Catholic homes, much of their faith formation takes place when they are col…

Pope’s US Visit Provokes Intense Attention; New Vatican Book on Man-Woman Complementarity & New Int’l Report on Christian Role Models for LGBT Equality; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…child sex abuse by allies The New York Times reported last weekend that American military personnel and civilians serving in Afghanistan have been required to look the other way as prominent Afghan allies participated in the rape of young boys, part of a broader practice of looking the other way regarding corruption and misdeeds in order not to undercut the fight against the Taliban. Pervasive sexual abuse of children has long been a problem in Af…

Church and State in Japan: The Case of the Yasukuni Shrine

By Mark R. Mullins

…s, a Holocaust survivor, both expressed their concerns about Japan’s “historical amnesia.” In their statements, they urged future prime ministers to avoid visits to the shrine out of concern for peace in the region, and urged them to do something about Yushukan, the museum adjacent to the shrine, which promotes a revisionist history that especially disturbs Japan’s nearest neighbors. As Lantos explained: For the survivors of World War II in Asia a…

Mormonism’s Black Issues

By Joanna Brooks

…rliest years of Mormon history, during the 1830s and 1840s, six or seven African-American men including Elijah Abel (1808–1885) and Walker Lewis (1798–1856) were ordained to the Church’s priesthood. But under the leadership of Mormon Church president Brigham Young, the ordination of African-American men ceased, African-American men and women were prohibited from temple worship, and intermarriage was officially discouraged. Some historians believe…

Cruz and the Evangelical Illusion

By Sarah Posner

…“We brought them with no expectations and we were highly pleased with the number who decided Ted is the right man to be of the president of the U.S.” When judging these statements (particularly the words “very diverse,” “significant standing” and “the number”), keep in mind that Barton is known (among evangelicals) for playing fast and loose with facts. Three years ago, the evangelical publisher Thomas Nelson halted publication of one of Barton’s…

Who Bombed the Boston Marathon?

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…ted. Only 149 groups existed before Obama was elected in 2008. In 2012 the number had expanded to 1,360. Not all are plotting terrorist attacks, of course. But some are. In September 2012, Daryl Johnson, a terrorist analyst for the US Department of Homeland Security testified before a Senate committee that there was an “upsurge” of potentially violent non-Islamic extremist activity in the United States. So fingers point toward right-wing Christian…

It’s Not About Cake: Anti-Gay Vendors Want a Constitutional Right to Discriminate

By Sunnivie Brydum

…scrimination laws. “The claims for religious exemptions have happened historically, and they’ve happened historically at moments of social change,” Melling explained. “When there are new laws passed to call for an end to discrimination in certain public spheres of this society, then we have seen, as we’re seeing now, calls for exemptions because of faith to those laws.” But the question as it pertains to LGBT people—the idea that for providing ser…

It’s Not Me, It’s You: Catholic Values Dumping Trump

By Patricia Miller

…hile significant from the perspective of recent trends, however, even that number must be put into perspective. When discussing “Catholics” for the purposes of politics it’s important to remember E.J. Dionne’s famous maxim that “there is no Catholic vote, but the Catholic vote matters.” That’s because the white Catholic vote tends to mirror the demographics of voters in key Northeastern swing states like Pennsylvania. And this explains some of the…