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A Queer Atheist In the Heart of Mormon Country

By Chris Stedman

…out and the Boy Scouts of America voting to allow openly gay scouts to participate. (LGBTQ adults and atheists still cannot do so openly.) As I read about Utah Pride in preparation for my remarks this upcoming weekend as the 2013 Boston Pride interfaith speaker, I couldn’t help but reflect on what I learned during a recent visit to Utah. It was late in the evening when I arrived, and I knew I would be there for only 24 hours. I was met by Alasdair…

The Threat to Democracy Runs Deep, But Mathematics Could Address the Abominable State of Representation and Voting

By Ismar Volić

…ggression, of a magnitude and brutality not seen in Europe since World War II, lasted for three and a half years. And here I am, thirty-two years later. And there they are, those same parties. They continue to profit from the tired playbook of dialing up fear and nationalism during each election cycle, stoking grievances from the past, and skillfully turning artificial ethnic segregation into streams of money that fill their coffers. Bosnia is a c…

Supreme Court Rules Religion is Special… This Time

By Katherine Stewart

Is religion special? In its recent decision on Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. E.E.O.C., the Supreme Court indicates that it is. That may be the one thing that they got right in this case. The U.S. has on the books a number of valuable laws against discrimination in the workplace, and all organizations (businesses, nonprofits, schools, governments) are expected to abide by these laws. Except religions, or so it now seems….

Speaking with Palestinian-American Republican Who Confronted GOP at Debate

By Haroon Moghul

…stood up at Thursday night’s CNN debate, he introduced himself as a Palestinian-American and a Republican. Plainly, that’s not what I expected to hear. Like any decent observer of the Republican race, I was irritated by Gingrich’s dismissal of the Palestinians, so hearing Hassan immediately got me excited. But what happened next, between his question and the condescending, irrelevant answers he received from Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, inspire…

Catholic Church is Lucky it’s Just Same-Sex Marriage

By Marian Ronan

…condemning, as Mary Hunt points out, a book by the highly regarded nun-ethicist, Margaret A. Farley, and representatives of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) flying to Rome to defend themselves from accusations of “radical feminism.” One of the meanings of this “radical feminism,” in case you’re wondering, is that the LCWR “never revoked a statement from 1977 that questioned the male-only priesthood,” and has failed to speak out…

Turn On The News: This Isn’t a Split, It’s a Tiny Sliver of Conservatives Walking Out the Door — Introducing A New Media Criticism Column

By Daniel Schultz

…and stricter denomination. Fortunately, we don’t have to imagine. This Religion News Service piece by Kathryn Post serves it up on a platter, discussing the breakaway aspirations of the Alliance of Reformed Churches. Helpfully, the article includes the ARC logo for identification purposes. I want to talk about Post’s story in some detail to inaugurate what I hope will be a series of columns dedicated to media criticism of religion journalism. We…

How the Study of Evangelicalism Has Blinded Us to the Problems in Evangelical Culture

By Christopher D. Cantwell

…evangelicalism quickly breaks down in the newer pieces that comprise Parts II and III of the text. Reprints of recent articles, blog posts, and editorials join several commissioned essays in documenting the many ways that today’s evangelicals have failed to comport themselves with classical definitions of their faith. Historian Michael S. Hamilton, for instance, argues in one of the collection’s original contributions that evangelicals have double…

Church=State in Putin’s Orthodox Empire?; Evangelical-Orthodox Anti-Gay Alliance; Malaysian Court Protects Transwomen; Catholicism (Still) Declining in Latin America; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…al diversity? Higher per capita income, longer histories of democratic stability, legal status, and religion. Buddhist or Jewish dominant countries are more accepting than Christian or Muslim dominant ones. What factors don’t correlate? A country’s overall educational level (though an individual’s does), type of Christianity (Catholic v. Protestant v. Orthodox), or specific cultural traits…. And yes, religion matters, too. In 93 percent of countri…

New Poll Reveals That Anti-Trans Rhetoric isn’t Just Affecting Republicans and White Evangelicals

By Chrissy Stroop

Remember when transgender Americans seemed to be having a positive cultural moment? Former child actor and author Chaz Bono, Sonny and Cher’s transgender son, helped pave the way with a documentary about his experience that came out in 2011, the same year he was featured on Dancing With the Stars. I remember watching some of that season, pleasantly surprised that my conservative evangelical mom clearly sympathized with him as the show told parts…

The Only Common Denominator of American Conservatism is Anti-Blackness

By Yannick Marshall

…7 “Conservative” is a misnomer. The term obscures the fact that those identified as conservatives have varied more widely in views on national debt, religion, military excursions, the personal conduct of elected officials, political party affiliation and other putative conservative concerns than they have on the treatment of Black people. The through line of American conservatism has been the work towards the increased injury of Black people at ea…