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New Study: Three-Quarters of American Giving Goes to Religion

By Jay Michaelson

…giving. That may not seem like a lot, but just crunch the numbers for a minute. The study found that 65% of religiously-affiliated people donate to congregations or charitable organizations. (More on that statistic later.) 80% of Americans are religiously affiliated. And 65% of 80% is just about… 55% of the total. In other words, the religious people who are giving say they’re giving because of religion. And they’re overwhelmingly giving to r…

Ghosts of Halloween Past

By The Editors

…The Fear is Real: A New View of Halloween Hell Houses LUCIA HULSETHER A 90-minute walk through the South Georgia woods offers violence, fear, and an Obama-like Antichrist Jesus Goes to the Dark Carnival: Hell House Gets a Makeover W. SCOTT POOLE A demon guides you through the shadows. The bodies of teenagers are strewn about like broken dolls in the mangled remains of a car, bottles of Jim Beam tellingly scattered about the wreckage… All Candy, N…

Mark Driscoll vs John MacArthur: Battle of the Self-Promoting Calvinists

By Rob Shryock

…t his own “Act Like Men” conference, coincidentally held a mere forty-five minute drive away in Long Beach, California. So on Friday, Driscoll took a break from espousing his creepy patriarchal gender philosophy to bring a message of sort-of-inclusion forty-five minutes up the road to Sun Valley. Once he arrived, Driscoll handed out copies of A Call To Resurgence, shook some hands, and prayed with a few people. But it wasn’t long before trouble…

Nadia Bolz-Weber on Becoming ‘God’s Bitch’

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…drug addict whose death was faked by the government so she could do their dirty work. “I was allowed not to die in exchange for working for God,” Bolz-Weber writes, “I’d have to become God’s bitch.” I had a chance to talk with Bolz-Weber about her journey and how she now finds inspiration not just in the Bible, but in her critics who still find it hard to accept the tough-talking, tender-hearted shepherd of spiritual misfits into their orthodox f…

Cali Dept of Corrections v. Peter Laarman On Prison Crowding

By The Editors

…ould still be released currently. I was writing about Brown’s recent last-minute plan to comply—sort of—with a court order without releasing additional inmates, whereas I and others involved in criminal justice reform applaud the smart justice direction that the governor and legislature took two years ago under the rubric of Public Safety Realignment. Anyone on the fence regarding Governor Brown’s criminal justice record need only refer to this…

NYPD Secretly Branded Mosques “Terrorism Enterprises”

By Rob Shryock

…ematic claim that the NYPD stopped 16 terrorist attacks on his watch. (The number, according to Pro Publica, is more in the realm of three) But has targeting mosques actually helped to protect New Yorkers? After all, the NYPD itself admitted that its investigation into the Muslim community produced zero leads. And there is compelling evidence that mosque attendance actually helps prevent terrorism. A 2011 study found that 95% percent of Muslims wh…

Religion Dispatches is Nominated for a 2014 Webby Award

By The Editors

…e you, the reading public, cast the votes. We’d be honored if you’d take a minute to show your support for Religion Dispatches, as we celebrate our strongest year ever. With a deep roster of remarkable writing, RD’s dedication to exploring and critiquing religion in public life has made us a vital source of information—and a powerful spur to the kinds of conversations that can change culture. Thank you for reading RD, and for your VOTE! The Edi…

Creationists Portray New Science Standards As “Big Government”

By Michael Schulson

…roselytizing to us?). Let’s leave aside the evolution-creation stuff for a minute, though, in order to note the sheer deceptiveness of the implication that the NGSS is some kind of federal imposition. Sure, it’s a national standard. But it’s a national standard that was drafted in partnership with a group of states—twenty-six, to be exact, including liberal bastions like Tennessee and Arkansas—and, in order to be implemented, it has to be approved…

Maybe Millennials Are Just Realizing That ‘God is Dead’

By Hollis Phelps

…fueled obsession with hearing ourselves speak, we could just shut up for a minute and listen to the wisdom of those who have gone before? … [What millennials really need] from the church is not another yes-man entity enabling my hubris and giving me what I want. Rather, what I need is something bigger than me, older than me, bound by a truth that transcends me and a story that will outlast me; basically, something that doesn’t change to fit me and…

FRC’s Perkins Selling Straight Hot Sex

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…stians need to pay attention to here, and challenge through that media megaphone—if you can stop thinking about sex for just one minute—is the FRC’s absolute and total hypocrisy on the issue of welfare. In this presentation, they point out that welfare recipients are the most productive workers, the “heavy lifters of the economy.” FRC praises these families that have more mouths to feed, for their Protestant work ethic. Which begs the question abo…