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As Pat Robertson Retires, Here Are 10 of His Most Cringeworthy Moments

By Chrissy Stroop

…from then-US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld himself. Why place this at number ten? Well, for a man who used to pal around with génocidaires and publicly lobbied on Mobutu’s behalf, calling for the assassination of a leftist dictator is pretty standard. Robertson’s mistake was doing it on TV in front of an audience of millions. In addition, his call for the US to assassinate Chavez is one of the remarks that public pressure eventually forced Ro…

New Research Links Spiritual-Not-Religious to Mental Disorder

By Elizabeth Drescher

…able to mental disorder.” This week, the news swam the pond to appear in a number of US news outlets. The research, led by University College London professor Michael King, reveals a population of “spiritual but not religious” Brits that generally tracks to the US population of “Nones” identified in a recent study by the Pew Forum on Religion in American Life. Some 35 percent of the more than 7,000 Brits surveyed indicated that they had “a religio…

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

By Neil J. Young

…olls indicated that 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for Trump. That number represented a shocking measure given who Donald Trump is. But it also fit squarely with the patterns of white evangelical support for Republican presidential candidates in all recent elections. Still, some evangelical leaders are challenging these findings. “No, the Majority of American Evangelicals Did Not Vote for Trump,” reads the headline of an article published…

3 Reasons Catholic Bishops Are Holding Their Tongues on GOP Health Care Debacle

By Patricia Miller

…not to … preventing birth.” But, as New York Times reports, under Trump a number of anti-contraception activists have been given prominent roles in the administration. They are moving not just to finalize a rule that would allow any entity to opt-out of the contraceptive mandate for any reason, which has long been on the bishops’ wish list, but have a history of attacking contraception in general. Katy Talento, who is now a White House domestic p…

Five Social Media Trends that are Reshaping Religion

By Elizabeth Drescher

…into face-to-face relationships. If the folks at Nielsen are correct, smartphones will continue to overtake, uh, dumb phones, making app-based connection and information-sharing a continuing growth area. Religiously-themed apps are certain to be an important part of that, but unless they grasp the digital trinity of social engagement, spiritual meaning, and incarnational potential that makes such apps truly worthwhile for believers and seekers. Th…

Pope and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Declare Shared View of Marriage & Family; Government & Muslim Officials Ramp Up Anti-LGBT Rhetoric in Indonesia; Australian Religious Leaders Ask Parliament to Act on Marriage Equality; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…hts of members of the LGBT community but was concerned with the increasing number of television programs promoting or starring members of the LGBT community, such as the popular transgender actor and comedian Dorce Gamalama. Erlinda said the commission was concerned that many young boys were starting to cross dress or adopt feminine characteristics because they had been “brainwashed” by these television programs. “The KPAI has stated clearly we re…

If You Liked The Martian You’ll Love These 3 Sci-Fi Shorts

By Andrew Aghapour

…. Luckily, Weir offers a treasure trove of short stories on his website, a number of which break with The Martian’s goal of approximating reality, grappling instead with some of the same issues that we discuss here at The Cubit. Without further ado, here are the top three short stories for anyone jonesing for more Weir: Bored World. The story of a mischievous, trans-dimensional plane of existence. Is this a god, or the story of sci-fi itself? Anti…

2017 Around the World: Progress and Persecution For LGBT People

By Peter Montgomery

…world” made “impressive gains,” noting advances in marriage equality in a number of nations. But the article also notes “horrific crackdowns on LGBT people” in Chechnya, Egypt, Uganda, Tajikistan, Indonesia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and Tanzania.” At The Global Americans, Javier Corrales recaps the year’s top 10 LGBT stories from Latin America and the Caribbean. Xtra’s Rob Salerno wrote that under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada was a pr…

Obama Caves on (Another) Contraception Exemption

By Patricia Miller

…contraceptive mandate will be small. But imagine a scenario where a larger number of employers seeks to escape a costly mandate, such as equal access to in vitro fertilization procedures for straight and gay couples, for supposedly religious reasons and hundreds flood HHS with generic opt-out letters that don’t identify a specific insurer. Or a future administration that is less dedicated to contraceptive access. It’s not hard to see how the lack…

Dieting, Sex, Jesus: The Body as Moral Battleground

By Lynne Gerber

…had been engaged in fat activist community, conversation, and action for a number of years and I wanted to take the opportunity that academic work provides to really hone in on questions that always engaged me: how has fatness come to have such a potent moral charge in American culture? Why do weight loss practices such as dieting generate such strong moral and religious feelings—and why do people use languages of virtue and vice, sin and salvatio…