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Grassroots Faith: The Lessons of The Social Gospel

By Christopher H. Evans

…l gospelers did in making their religious convictions a public force in American politics. By the same token, when one looks at the number of visionary leaders influenced by social gospelers like Walter Rauschenbusch—such as Martin Luther King Jr.—it would be a gross injustice to the movement’s legacy to say that it failed. Rauschenbusch’s vision was of a faith-based movement that required not just a political but a spiritual response. My hope is…

New Doc Strives for Christian Unity—But What if Unity is the Problem?

By Noah Berlatsky

…ship. “For many researchers,” they say, “it is of foremost concern that Americans seemingly no longer respect or even tolerate one another, and fear the other side poses an existential threat to their very way of lives and livelihoods.” But Kreiss and McGregor believe these concerns may be misguided: The work of political historians, sociologists, and racial and ethnic studies researchers shows how the efforts of marginalized groups to achieve pol…

Fasting and Faithy Friends of Convenience

By Sarah Posner

…d the 2008 election; as I’ve argued before, he gained support across the a number of demographic groups, and it’s difficult to make the case that Obama won because he finally shed the Democrats’ (imagined) hostility to religion. If you’re a religious person whose faith compels you to favor government programs to support the less economically blessed among us, pulling the lever for McCain-Palin probably wasn’t in the cards. To add insult to injury…

The Story Behind the Catholic Church’s Stunning Reversal on Contraception

By Patricia Miller

…limited to procreation; that it was acceptable to limit family size for a number of reasons; and that it was licit to use the naturally occurring sterile period to do so. Enter Catholic physician John Rock. By designing a contraceptive that used hormones already present in a woman’s body to mimic the natural infertility of a pregnant woman, he hoped the Vatican would find a theological basis to approve the method. In 1958, when the Pill was alrea…

Like Azusa Street Baptized into Bureaucracy: Mexico’s Flourishing LLDM Church Loses its Apostle

By Michael Schulson

…tifies with a Protestant denomination, nearly two-thirds of which are pentecostal. These numbers bear out in the United States, where around 25% of Hispanics identify as Protestant. “Among Hispanic Protestants overall,” Pew writes, “two-thirds either say they belong to a traditional Pentecostal denomination (29%) or describe themselves as charismatic or Pentecostal Christians (38%).” Pinning down precise numbers for LLDM is almost impossible. The…

How Religion Shapes (or Doesn’t) Our Views on Public Issues

By Daniel Schultz

…dy late last week looking how religious beliefs influence perceptions on a number of different issues. A quick-and-dirty look at the results would tell you that religion doesn’t change much, with a few notable exceptions. For example, this surprising statistic: “60% of those who oppose gay marriage say religion is the most important influence on their views.” One wonders where the other 40% comes from. Likewise, social issues come in dead last on…

Did North Carolinians Vote Against their Own Beliefs?

By Peter Montgomery

The most dispiriting number to come out of North Carolina today was the huge margin of victory for a constitutional amendment that, as Candace has noted, will not only forbid same-sex couples from getting married, but will strip couples of any legal protections that might have been offered through domestic partnerships or civil unions. The broad wording of the amendment is more evidence that anti-gay advocates are lying when they say they’re only…

‘It’s a Gay Problem,’ and Other Myths From the Catholic Church’s Sexual Abuse Crisis

By Joelle Casteix

…re that tolerates them. In reality, the allegedly disproportionately large number of gay priests may be related to the problem, but it isn’t the cause of it. As Robert Mickens wrote in July, and as others have noted for years, the pathologizing of queer sexualities has driven many men to the priesthood, as the vow of celibacy offers what appears to be a safe haven from negotiating a forbidden path. As a result, although he’s careful to point out t…

Packed with Threats of Political Violence, Media Largely Ignore the NAR’s ‘Million Women’ Rally in DC

By Frederick Clarkson

…lor thought it was less. But certainly tens of thousands attended, and the number may even exceed a hundred thousand. Whatever the actual number at the Mall, the audience was much larger since the event was live-streamed on Facebook, YouTube, and Rumble and translated into several languages. The Jumbotrons that lined the Mall were alternatively closed captioned in English and Spanish. It’s difficult to imagine any other religious or political even…

A Peek Inside the ‘Onion’ of Scientology

By Kristin Rawls

…heirs, but they aggressively tried to ban him. In the early 1960s, the [American Psychological Association] wrote letters banning members from having anything to do with Hubbard or his theories. Hubbard saw them as enemies, and that has not changed in Scientology. Children who grow up in Scientology say their understanding of psychiatry is that it’s the root of all evil. In your chapters on Lisa McPherson, the young woman who died under mysteriou…