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

By Jonathan Root

…t the “Aerobics Center,” students filled out a computer card with their ID number, activity number, and the time, intensity, and distance of their workout. The data derived from the cards helped to determine grades. One student who had been forced to enroll in the Pounds Off Program said, “I’m really sad for the school. It has so much potential, so many positive things about it, but you can’t treat people this way… They treat you like you’re not c…

Single, But Married To Jesus

By Anthea Butler

…Having a husband meant that they could not give their ultimate all for the number one man on most African-American womens’ lips, and it’s not Denzel. It’s Jesus. For many women in churches like COGIC, being in love with Jesus means that most other men, whether desirable as a husband or not, stood in the way of the number one relationship. One person I interviewed even had a name for it: “being loosed” from your husband to do the Lord’s work. “Bein…

6 Overlooked Takeaways From a Reviewer of Controversial Texas Textbooks

By David R. Brockman

…ons. I don’t mean a simplistic parity (e.g., giving each religion an equal number of words or lines). Religious balance instead means presenting each religious tradition as fairly and accurately as possible. While that might seem an obvious good to most RD readers, the textbook review process also taught me that entrenched, politically powerful, and well-organized forces in Texas and beyond are working to undermine that kind of religious balance i…

Republican Scandals Drag Secretive ‘Family’ Into the Big Time

By Randall Balmer, Anthea Butler, Evan Derkacz, Jeff Sharlet, and Diane Winston

…t swimming. *** RD: I’ve been gently told, much to my surprise I have to admit, that not everyone assumes that America is an empire as I, and others in this RT have noted without qualification. Writers and thinkers across the political spectrum (and for many decades now) refer to America as an empire (whether it’s Georgetown scholar Charles Kupchan, warning of the inevitable fall of empires in 2002’s The End of the American Era, the Times’ Michael…

Rumors of the Suicide of the Liberal Church Are Exaggerated: A Response to Chris Hedges

By Mark Hulsether

…within that minority. It is far less clear than pundits assume that its limitations are more severe today than before its struggles after 1970—although its collapsing cultural prestige is a real problem. But rather than slow down, let’s grant a steep decline for the sake of argument. Decline to what level? Hedges notes that Catholics, who still have a 21% demographic slice, are “being decimated,” yet this is seven times more people than watched t…

Religion and Resistance at the New National Museum of African American History and Culture

By Anita Little

…religious life. Why do you think it’s happening now? I believe it’s the commitment of the our director, Dr. Lonnie Bunch, and the commitment of the museum to tell the fullness of the story. What I mean by the “fullness” of the story is to show all the different aspects to our history that exist. At the museum, we have a shofar horn as a sort of reminder that there have always been African Americans in the Jewish community. We also have a number of…

Dispatches From the Rhodian Shore: A (Tough) Love Letter to Religious Studies

By Todd LeVasseur

…awing and releasing methane. Sound alarming? Not when we get to data point number 2. 2. Basically, we are not alarmed enough. Not by a long shot. Rather, in concluding their analysis of climate data, an international group of scientists write, “We have summarized predictions of a ghastly future of mass extinction, declining health, and climate-disruption upheavals (including looming massive migrations) and resource conflicts this century…we conten…

Obama’s AIPAC Speech Hardly a Change to Believe In

By Stephen Zunes

…such special interest groups as AIPAC. This speech may have cost him large numbers of these smaller, progressive donors without gaining him much from the small numbers of larger, more conservative donors. Indeed, there may not be a single policy issue where Obama’s liberal base differs from the candidate more than on Israel/Palestine. Not surprisingly, the Green Party and its likely nominee, former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, along wit…

Don’t Call It “Prayer Shaming”: Our Moral Failure Exposed

By Willie Dwayne Francois

…ficials issued tweets that, many have argued ad nauseum, demonstrated a commitment to public piety instead of public policy as a response to the massacre. In a rare moment, news and social media outlets in the U.S. became a forum for a surprising debate about spiritual disciplines—the meaning and import of prayer. Layered approaches to prayer and “prayer shaming” dominated public discourse in the days following the shooting. On the right and left,…

Exclusion is Causing Great Harm: A Conversation With Suspended UMC Pastor Rev. Cynthia Meyer

By Joel Pitney

…and inclusion. I was glad to be part of that. So many people are deeply committed, and prayerfully working so hard. There may be limits around how long we can keep up that kind of fight while being excluded. The next couple of years are really significant in whether people will stay, and whether the church will remain one church. In the United Methodist Church, like any Christian denomination, there’s a lot of time and energy being spent on attrac…