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A Twisted Love Story: How American Evangelicals Helped Make Putin’s Russia and How Russia Became the Darling of the American Right

By Katherine Kelaidis

…h almost exclusively made up of immigrants and their descendants, these Americans with no historical ties to Orthodoxy, became a majority in a number of Orthodox jurisdictions in the United States and brought with them their cultural baggage—most importantly the Culture Wars. The changes were obvious and immediate, both in traditional Orthodox countries and in the diaspora. Of course, Orthodoxy has never been gay-affirming (despite John Boswell’s…

How a Ruling for Masterpiece Cakeshop Could Embolden White Nationalists

By Sunnivie Brydum

…ly, and legally powerful.” Indeed, as Wenger’s book documents in deep historical detail, the bedrock American principle has already been used to justify imperialism, racism, slavery, xenophobia, misogyny, and (most recently) anti-LGBT animus. But Wenger notes that the concept of religious freedom has also proved to be a powerful tool for religious and ethnic minorities to stake a claim to the promise of American equality and the vaunted ideal of “…

Do Atheists Belong in the Interfaith Movement?

By Chris Stedman

…or such conversations, but the ideal forum for it. I can fondly recall any number of incidents where I argued theology and philosophy with a religious colleague while doing interfaith work; and how, later, they told me that they actually took my perspective seriously because we had built a trusting relationship. It made all the difference that I treated them as intellectual equals—as people with respectable goals rather than just mindless adherent…

Conservative Christianity and Its Discontents

By Karl Giberson and Randall J. Stephens

…t an illness. It does not require treatment and is not changeable.” The American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, along with numerous other professional organizations, have adopted similar stances. But still young people, including those that frequent the clinic run by Michelle Bachmann’s husband, are encouraged to seek deliverance from their condition. The emerging acceptance of homosexuality and gay marriage, claim man…

Are We Entering the End Times for Mainline Seminaries?

By Elesha Coffman

…nce existed mainly to train full-time pastors faced reductions in both the number of churches that could support such positions and the number of people eager to take the more challenging, but lower paying, church jobs that remained. Some seminaries shifted their missions to serve the academy or society more broadly, while others trained more part-time, second-career and lay pastors. These shifts were less abrupt than decisions to close or merge a…

White Evangelical Leaders Already Distancing Themselves from the “81-Percenters”

By Neil J. Young

…mp’s poor showing among non-white evangelicals, particularly Latinos and African Americans, means that his total standing among all evangelicals likely came under 50 percent. But the whole weight of Carter’s argument depends on an inaccurate depiction of the media’s reporting on the election. News media did not report, as Carter asserts, that “an overwhelming number of evangelicals” voted for Trump. Instead, news media, including the The New York…

Trump the Totem: Like Other Fascist Leaders, Trump has Turned from Man to Symbol — And That’s the Danger

By Robert P. Jones

…f the clan…. [The participant] does not know that the coming together of a number of men associated in the same life results in disengaging new energies, which transform each of them. All that he knows is that he is raised above himself and that he sees a different life from the one he ordinarily leads. However, he must connect these sensations to some external object as their cause. Now what does he see about him? On every side those things which…

Right Wingers Say “Gay” is Out, But Try Putting “Unnatural Vice” On a Bumper Sticker

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…eny minority of people may take away their right to tell gays and lesbians that God will send them to hell for all eternity — out of love, mind you. But, then again, anti-gay Evangelicals have a right to be afraid. After all, researchers say the actual number of Evangelicals may well be “as small as 7 percent of the total adult population.” Which means Evangelicals know just how effective a small number of people can be at taking away the rights o…

Pope Francis Has Painted Himself into a Corner on Women Deacons

By Mary E. Hunt

…tly as the meeting with the UISG, Francis warned against “the danger of clericalism in the Church today” which problem he would only exacerbate by adding women to the clerical ranks. Having raised the question and promised a study on women deacons, the pope is on thin ice to step back from some substantive reform related to women. I doubt it will come on birth control or abortion. If he names women deaconesses and does not ordain women to the diac…

Are You Rapture Ready?

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…of a Broadway show. Jesus is about to make his big entrance only his final number will feature the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Tom Evans, spokesman for Family Radio said their math for setting the return date came from a verse in Luke 17: “As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the Son of Man.” According to Camping’s prediction, the Rapture will happen exactly 7,000 years from the date that God first warned people about…