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A Peek Inside the ‘Onion’ of Scientology

By Kristin Rawls

…m of auditing called] Introspective Rundowns who had very traumatic experiences. There have been a number of cases in which people have died under mysterious circumstances in Clearwater, Florida, [the center of Scientology in the U.S.], but nothing as traumatic as what Lisa went through. That was truly unique because it happened in Church headquarters. What I would say is that some of the Scientology processes have a destabilizing effect on some…

YOU Are Spiritual But Not Religious: The Secret Spiritual History of the Choose Your Own Adventure Books

By Daniel Silliman

…tions, and allowed them to play their way through potentially problematic encounters with non-Western cultures. The role-playing exercise was used by the Peace Corps (which, incidentally, was started by William Sloane Coffin). As Montgomery would explain on his blog many years later, at Abt Associates he learned the power of a simulation model, “an approximation of reality without the risks of the real world.” “You make choices leading to differen…

Naked Jihad

By Kate Blanchard

…ommunities of common understanding, around people who affirm us and make us feel normal. But perhaps with increased visibility—with nakedness, so to speak—can come increased tolerance, and eventually, an increase in compassion, without which there is no understanding. …

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

By Jonathan Root

…student. This prescriptive model—what ORU has called its “whole person” concept since its opening in 1965—is epitomized in the school’s longstanding focus on its sometimes controversial student wellness programs. The university made national headlines in 1977, for example, when a group of former students, working in coordination with the ACLU, sued the university for discrimination. The young men and women had been forced to enroll in ORU’s “Poun…

Scottish Episcopal Church Angers Conservative Anglicans With Embrace of Same-Sex Marriage; and more in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…rnor of Jalisco, joined Guadalajara’s Pride march and called for respect, inclusion and tolerance. The governor’s Facebook page included a range of comments both in support and opposition, with some citing the teachings of the Catholic Church and criticizing the governor for not having joined an earlier “pro-family” march. Poland: Opposition to LGBT rights central to ruling party ideology At EU Observer, Aleksandra Eriksson writes that gay rights…

The Internet Is Not Killing Religion, Religion is Killing Religion

By Elizabeth Drescher

…l Smith’s conception of “faith,” to consider what elements of human experience are deliberately and incidentally left out of whatever it is we might understand as “religion” in its institutionalized forms, and why. Who is served by the various exclusions and inclusions of institutional religion? To what ends? And who is harmed? What we might consider, then, with much more nuance and complexity than mere data manipulation can possibly tell us, is w…

A Question for Hobby Lobby Supporters…

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…way: The Catholic theologians’ brief suggests there is a big moral difference between (to speak in concrete terms) handing someone a pile of money, versus handing someone a piece of paper that says “This is your insurance plan that I, your employer, am paying you with, and among the things it can be used for is contraception.” But why? Why isn’t handing someone some money the same thing as handing them a piece of paper that says, “This is your in…

The Abortion Debate, Texas Style

By Dhawn Martin

…ned the Capitol’s open-air rotunda into a public forum. One activist pronounced pro-life the “truly Christian” stance; another expressed dismay that “‘they’ always paint ‘us’ as godless.” All the while a man walked about the rotunda bearing a notebook-sized sign with the word “theocracy” crossed out. It was a day of high stakes and emotion as people continued to debate the role of government, faith, and human agency in questions of how or why to r…

Pope Francis Has Painted Himself into a Corner on Women Deacons

By Mary E. Hunt

…ive matter of ordination will go. Zagano et al have pored through the evidence and concluded that it’s a good bet that women were deacons. Scriptural evidence in Romans 16:1 and I Timothy 3:11 has been worked over thoroughly. Phoebe was not a Girl Scout but a deacon. Consensus is elusive, but church laws have been made on flimsier data. Further study is unlikely to yield new information, simply more opinions about history. As investment brokers sa…

Reactionary White Buddhists Have Joined The Fight Against Critical Race Theory

By Ann Gleig

…ebration of Asian Buddhist monastic extremists such as U Wirathu who have incited violence against Muslims. For those readers who associate Buddhism with progressive liberal values, or hold an ahistorical reading of the tradition as apolitical, the white backlash to racial justice will be a surprise. As within all religious traditions, however, Buddhist doctrine has been used to both support and resist power regimes. Rather than argue for a “real”…