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

By Kelly J. Murphy

…tive arc? Perhaps most importantly, how can we make things better in this world when it seems like this world is at its worst? As I teach about apocalyptic texts once again, I mourn for the Strack family. Though they are a family I did not know, I mourn for their lost lives and their surviving relatives, their friends, and community. The end of the world is always and never near—and it matters that we understand why. Photo by flickr user Stephen…

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

By Lisa Bitel

…boys. In all, the Saw Doctors have produced seven studio albums and thirty number one singles. Music critics have compared the band’s effect to that of the Grateful Dead and Bruce Springsteen because of their ability to make the small negotiations and crises of everyday life seem so politically urgent, and to do so in catchy melodies and upbeat rhythms. But the real secret to Docs’ success lies in their devoted cult following among Irish, British,…

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

By Sarah Posner

…s 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 administration. Like other Congressional staffer organizations, the CMSA does not receive any funding or support from the government; rather the status permits it to use space and provides a structure for leadership…

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

…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, despi…

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…

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

By Annika Brockschmidt

…per, Die Welt, escalated the mainstreaming of right-wing talking points. A number of researchers wrote an op-ed, in which they accused the ARD and ZDF, the independent, state-funded TV news stations (the German version of the BBC) of “indoctrinating” kids with “gender ideology” in order to sexualize and “re-educate” them. The article hits all the right-wing bullet points of a shadowy conspiracy at work: The media, driven by secretive “trans-lobbyi…

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

…anizing all the more ironic, since at least a quarter of adjuncts are so poorly remunerated that they qualify for Medicaid or food stamps. The greater glory of the bottom line The powerhouse religious order of Catholic higher education is the Jesuits, who run twenty-eight colleges and universities throughout the USA. Tuition and fees at Jesuit colleges range from $47,317 at Fordham University to $28, 030 at Wheeling Jesuit University. While many J…