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The World is (Always) About to End, No Zombies Required

By Kelly J. Murphy

…The way the eldest child died, a 14-year old boy named Benson, remains, according to the AP reports, “undetermined.” Why would Benjamin and Kristi Strack kill themselves and their children? The short answer: a “pending apocalypse.” But beyond that, no details. According to various reports, Kristi Strack had once been obsessed with Dan Lafferty, now imprisoned for his role in the murder of his sister-in-law Brenda. (Dan and his brother Ron belonged…

“Can You Tell Me Who The Villains Are?”: Rock and Religion, Irish-Style

By Lisa Bitel

…She feels examined by their eyes Is she right or is she wrong? She’s got a number in her pocket And one change of clothes Her innocence is fading Like last years winter snow’s Light a candle in the window So she can see it from the road With all the loving in your heart Welcome her back home. The Docs’ keening for a fallen innocent seems all too prescient, given the recent negotiations over revelations of priestly sexual abuse of both girls and bo…

Conservative Republican Muslim Condemns Fox Report on Congressional Staffers as “Anti-Muslim Bigotry”

By Sarah Posner

…approached then-Speaker Newt Gingrich about obtaining a room for the small number of Muslim staffers to hold Friday prayers. Gingrinch granted that request, and the tradition continued through the tenures of Speakers Dennis Hastert, also a Republican, and Nancy Pelosi. Over the years, the number of people attending grew, eventually leading to the creation of the CMSA around 2007, when Khan has already left Hill service and was working in the Bush…

How to Make Nones and Lose Money: Study Shows Cost of Catholic Sex Abuse Scandals

By Kaya Oakes

…al, leaving the American church with a massive money problem and shrinking numbers of parishioners on the eve of Pope Francis’ arrival. A recent study by Nicholas Bottan and Ricardo Perez-Trugila in the Journal of Public Economics revealed that, unsurprisingly, “a scandal causes a persistent decline in the local Catholic affiliation and church attendance.” “Some Catholics join other religious denominations during the first three years after a scan…

New Report: Angels & Aliens in Texas Schools

By Mark A. Chancey

…them. That’s what severed the relationship. Academic Quality A surprising number of courses asked little more of students than to memorize Bible verses or learn basic details of biblical stories so that they could fill in the blanks on tests. Some made very questionable choices about the use of classroom time, such as the course that spent two days watching “the historic documentary Ancient Aliens,” which presents “a new interpretation of angelic…

Post-Election, “Is The Black Church Dead?” Redux

By Anthea Butler

…hy, and a growing number of conservative African-American candidates. A record number of black Republicans ran in this midterm election (some had already lost their primaries), and two are heading to Congress. Tim Scott will be the first African-American Republican to represent South Carolina in Congress since Reconstruction. (He beat out Strom Thurmond’s son in the primaries.) Iraq war veteran Allen West will be headed to Congress from Florida, d…

Single, But Married To Jesus

By Anthea Butler

…ed, one spectacularly. Bad theology is also to blame. The “waiting on the Lord” theme, being told to be like Ruth and wait until your Boaz finds you, and my favorite, “Let the Lord be your husband” are just trite pacifiers designed to keep women in the pews, sexually inactive, their purses open. Lest you think I wax sentimental, let me push my “I am sick of this black woman marriage story” one step further. The original blogger, Ms. Cooper, stated…

The Anti-Trans Hate Machine’s Conspiracies Don’t Stop at the US Border

By Annika Brockschmidt

…“wedge issue” the Right has sought to exploit—so far quite effectively—in order to radicalize people and recruit more to their hateful cause. Die Welt, owned by the Springer publishing house which recently acquired Politico, faced a fierce backlash and later changed some of the wording of the headline—though claims of a shadowy trans lobby, with its clearly antisemitic undertones referring to a secretive cabal pushing what the writers perceive as…

Harry Reid vs. Islamic Cultural Center

By Joanna Brooks

…t’s not a proud day for freedom of religion when a prominent member of the number two most disliked major religion in America effectively sides against a honest project by the number one most disliked major religion in America. Especially when Mormons have just recently come through our own years-long struggle to build an LDS temple in Center City Philadelphia after Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter tried to extract a six-figure sum from the Churc…

Union Busting for God: Catholic Colleges Invoke “Religious Freedom” to Violate Catholic Teaching

By Kaya Oakes

…religious education (this exception was also made at Seattle University according to Lieb and other sources). According to Loyola theology instructor Teresa Calpino, this decision was the result of “not really understanding fully what it is that a theology department does as opposed to someone who works in pastoral studies.” She added that “we don’t have any sort of religious test of who can teach in the department.” Attempting to reclassify theol…