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

By Edward E. Curtis IV

…murders in the United State since 9/11. Yet counter-terrorism remained the number one priority of the FBI, which spends several billion dollars annually to prevent and prosecute Muslim terrorists. Is this myopic focus on Muslim terrorists doing all of us more harm than good? Finally, citizens and policy-makers must grapple with its never-ending war on terrorism abroad. For a significant portion of the country, the war on terrorism is, by definitio…

Participant Discredits the Original Ex-Gay Study

By Warren Throckmorton

…dings with the 11 subjects (from page 1555, see below). Bussee was subject number two and Cooper was number one. Both Bussee and Cooper were rated as Kinsey 6 (exclusively homosexual) before change and a 0 (exclusively heterosexual) after change. Since there was no follow-up, this study has been used to support the proposition that gays could change to straight via religious mediation. For instance, not knowing any of this background at the time,…

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

By William E. Smith

…gamy. But neither was the end of thinking and doing polygamy during this period. Two prominent theologians penned pro-polygamy works under the Protestant principle of sola scriptura. Bernardino Ochino, the former head of the Capuchin Order and a famous Protestant convert, wrote a dialogue making a biblical case for polygamy (though he was subsequently exiled from most of Western and Central Europe for publishing it). About a hundred years later, J…

How the COVID-19 Pandemic May Permanently Change Our ‘Good Death’ Narrative

By Cody J. Sanders

…and how we must ourselves change and renew our relationships if we are to move forward from here.…This work is not opposed to practical action, rather it is the foundation of any sustainable and informed response. We are living and dying now at the cusp of a long period of mourning that will rupture what we’ve known as a Good Death. May it also be a period of learning and transformation as we enter together into a changed reality and renewed rela…

Who Bombed the Boston Marathon?

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…a report issued by the reliable Southern Poverty Law Center last year, the number of extremist Patriot groups has skyrocketed. 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…

Data-Mining The Denominations: The Southern Baptists in Four Charts

By Daniel Schultz

…se members. In 2013, the SBC claimed 15,735,640 members, and in 2014, that number fell by 236,467 to 15,499,173—that’s a 1.5 percent decline. However, on this stat alone, the claim could be made that churches are simply clearing out the cobwebs and tidying up their membership rolls so their numbers more accurately reflect their active members. The problem is, membership isn’t alone in its decline—it’s joined by baptisms and weekly worship attendan…

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

By Sunnivie Brydum

…e-providers like bakeries and florists, dress-shops, hair salons, and “any number” of other businesses could claim that their services are in fact a form of constitutionally protected artistic practice. “The claim at issue here sounds as if the business can put up a sign in its window that says, ‘We sell cakes for heterosexuals only,’” Melling explained, taking ADF’s logic to its natural conclusion. “There’s an immediate consequence of that, and t…

Speaking for Hinduism in the Absence of a Conversation

By Murali Balaji

…one. Shukla’s call for academic integrity in the AAR—which was vetted by a number of scholars active in AAR —is not different from the codes of ethics already in place for most other academic organizations in every discipline. When I was a professor, I had to go through Institutional Review Boards for qualitative studies that involved interpretation of human feeling or practice. Moreover, Shukla is not making any radical departure from what AAR al…

Bill Gates’ Comments on Covid-19 Vaccine Enflame ‘Mark of the Beast’ Worries in Some Christian Circles

By Christopher James Blythe

…lessen the overall sentiment that he has something to do with a Last Days numbering scenario. After all, an effort to provide a global ID is an effort to track world populations even if its intentions are benevolent. While the spread of a vaccine-linked conspiracy theory has been spearheaded via social media and YouTube, there are also proponents among local church leaders and national Christian figures. Ronnie Hampton, cited above, warned his co…

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…