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The Story Behind the Catholic Church’s Stunning Contraception Reversal

…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…

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The Demographic that Should Keep Rove Awake at Night

…continues to erode—from 21 percent in 2007 to 19 percent in 2012—while the number of the religiously unaffiliated is rising—from 16 percent to 20 percent over the same period. In other words, “nones” and evangelicals are equivalent in numbers. One explanation for this change in America’s religious complexion is that white Christians are aging: 72 percent of voters over 65 are white Christians, compared to only 26 percent of voters under 30. Pew al…

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American Jewish Leaders Get Gaza Wrong

…by the Al Qassam Brigades).  Yousef Munayyer provides some history of the numbers from Gaza at Open Zion: For example, in 2011, the projectiles fired by the Israeli military into Gaza have been responsible for the death of 108 Palestinians, of which 15 where women or children, and the injury of 468 Palestinians, of which 143 where women or children. The methods by which these causalities were inflicted by Israeli projectiles breaks down as follow…

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Hobby Lobby: Key to a More Liberal and Less Religious America?

…te hearts and minds, and moving people out of the pews across America. The number of nones (people with no religious preference) is on the rise, with over 20% of all Americans claiming this status, and many point to the increased politicization of religion as the cause. This trend of legal victories will, in the long run, very likely create a more secular America. Recent data indicate that this process is already clearly under way. A poll just rel…

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Blood and Politics — Christian White Nationalism in the Age of Obama

…eliefs have been dissected over the years, the core religious beliefs of a number of White nationalist movement leaders has received far less attention. Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream Leonard Zeskind Farrar, Straus and Giroux May, 2009 I recently had the opportunity to talk with Zeskind, a friend and colleague, about his new book, the role these religious beliefs played in the d…

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Obama’s Gay Marriage Support Shocks Black Church

…s, stunted sexuality, homophobia, and sexual abuse are competing for issue number one in their churches; at many, they are tied at the number one slot. It is high time to for the leaders of the black church to ‘put away childish things’ and to engage in a real conversation about sexuality, same-sex marriage, and the homophobia embedded in the black church community. Pontificating and posturing props up preachers, and does little to edify congregat…

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Global Religious Right Asks ‘How Far Can We Get?’; And More in the Global LGBT Recap

…us right” within the CSW: The CSW has become a space in which a formidable number of Christian right-wing organizations network and actively work to try and roll back pre-existing international agreements on sexual and reproductive health and rights and recent multilateral SOGI gains. These organizations—the majority of which are US-based – have grown increasingly sophisticated in spreading their activism globally and in engaging youth (particular…

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Faith-Based Bailout Part 3

…t markets. The subtext of story number one, which will likely become story number two in the next day or so, is the partisan sniping that has already consumed the issue. A conservative core of House Republicans now claim, with a semi-straight face, that a partisan floor speech from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi actually turned them against a bill they came prepared to vote for. The speech “was” partisan—in the extreme, and far too much so for my tast…

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Religious Leaders Need ‘Empty the Pews’ Which Chronicles the Darker Side of the ‘Nones’ Phenomenon

…stical data on Nones, compiled by the sociologist Ryan Burge—and a growing number of books exploring the narrative stories of Nones have appeared in recent years, including a book of my own. Empty the Pews: Stories of Leaving the Church Chrissy Stroop and Lauren O’Neal Epiphany Publishing November 29, 2019 What many of these articles and books share in common is a sense of confusion or despair. The primary question they ask is often framed in the…

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Bonnaroo 3: With a Buzz in Our Ears

…roup of Birmingham college students who had been persuaded by one of their number that this was worth the wait. It was. It is hard to describe the experience of standing in the second row of a rock concert, untold numbers at your back, without sounding trite. In a world in which it is possible to conduct nearly all communication via one machine or another, to travel from one climate-controlled setting to the next without exchanging so much as a mo…

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