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Liberty University’s In-House Conversion ‘Therapist’ Retires, But Will the Christian School Cease This Discredited Practice?

By Lucas Wilson

…eone asks me how many children I have, I tell them three daughters and thousands of sons.” This disturbing sentiment hints at the overwhelming number of students who were habitually subjugated to Emerick’s chaotic work. The question, however, remains: While neither he nor Liberty referred to him as a therapist of any kind, how was it legal for Emerick, someone who’s not a licensed therapist, to get away with offering such services? The first part…

Gambian Prez Rails Against Gay ‘Evil Empire’; Irish Priest Comes Out During Mass; Trans Talk on Tunisian TV Sparks Debate; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…inclusion, while shaking the conservative set, has attracted a far larger number of people back to the Church, especially the young.” The Philippines is the bulkhead of the faith in Asia, where 130 million Catholics now account for about 12 percent of the world total. That’s up from 5 percent in 1910, when 65 percent of the faithful were in Europe, according to a Pew Research Center’s survey. Europe now accounts for less than a quarter of world C…

Muslims in America, Fifty Years Later: New Poll Shows Pride and Optimism In the Face of Bias

By Edward E. Curtis IV

…ength to believe in a better future. Muslim Americans also report that the number of non-Muslims who have been kind to them has risen in the past year. They believe in the American dream by a greater percentage than non-Muslim Americans. Over nine out of ten Muslims say that they are proud to be American. The question this poll raises for non-Muslims is: over the next fifty years, will our actions strengthen or weaken the surprising optimism of Mu…

Participant Discredits the Original Ex-Gay Study

By Warren Throckmorton

…dings with the 11 subjects (from page 1555, see below). Bussee was subject number two and Cooper was number one. Both Bussee and Cooper were rated as Kinsey 6 (exclusively homosexual) before change and a 0 (exclusively heterosexual) after change. Since there was no follow-up, this study has been used to support the proposition that gays could change to straight via religious mediation. For instance, not knowing any of this background at the time,…

Who’s Scared of Polygamy? A Restrained Case for the “Slippery Slope” Argument

By William E. Smith

…holic system of marital impediments and kinship (dramatically reducing the number of people a person was related to in a way that barred marriage), and cracked open the door to divorce. But as historian Lyndal Roper has taught us, these Reformers, by questioning the nature of marriage so thoroughly, helped to make more radical marital experiments possible. Roper points to both the short-lived polygamous city-state of Münster and, in much more dept…

How the COVID-19 Pandemic May Permanently Change Our ‘Good Death’ Narrative

By Cody J. Sanders

…the work of mourning: In short, mourning is a process of learning and transformation to accommodate a changed reality. Mourning is about dwelling with a loss and so coming to appreciate what it means, how the world has changed, and how we must ourselves change and renew our relationships if we are to move forward from here.…This work is not opposed to practical action, rather it is the foundation of any sustainable and informed response. We are l…

Who Bombed the Boston Marathon?

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…ing them to justice. The manifesto of the Unabomber contained a sufficient number of clues to his identity that eventually someone—his own brother—recognized the familiar writing patterns and revealed his identity to the authorities. But there is another reason for the anonymity: the perpetrators want the acts to speak for themselves. If one regards acts of terrorism as a kind of performance violence, one can accept the notion that the act itself…

Data-Mining The Denominations: The Southern Baptists in Four Charts

By Daniel Schultz

…se members. In 2013, the SBC claimed 15,735,640 members, and in 2014, that number fell by 236,467 to 15,499,173—that’s a 1.5 percent decline. However, on this stat alone, the claim could be made that churches are simply clearing out the cobwebs and tidying up their membership rolls so their numbers more accurately reflect their active members. The problem is, membership isn’t alone in its decline—it’s joined by baptisms and weekly worship attendan…

It’s Not About Cake: Anti-Gay Vendors Want a Constitutional Right to Discriminate

By Sunnivie Brydum

…orsing those who buy the product,” Melling explained. But, if ADF is successful in claiming that its clients are artists, rather than business-people, the scope of a decision in favor of the plaintiffs could have sweeping implications. “Where would that claim of artistry end?” Melling asked, noting that in addition to wedding service-providers like bakeries and florists, dress-shops, hair salons, and “any number” of other businesses could claim th…

Speaking for Hinduism in the Absence of a Conversation

By Murali Balaji

…pseudoscience), her misinterpretation of key texts, and an unusually high number of factual inaccuracies (by some independent estimates, up to 500 errors). Doniger had every right to publish her book, and like every academic work, it will have its supporters and detractors. However, by dismissing her intellectual critics outright and not fully explaining the inaccuracies of her book, Doniger did a fundamental disservice to the nature of academic…