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The Religious Mourning of ‘Saint’ Kobe Bryant Continues

By Terry Shoemaker

…urning of Bryant’s passing. American society is heavily influenced by Protestant Christian ideas. An important move of the Protestant tradition—a reform movement of Catholicism—is the elimination of formal sainthood processes. Protestants argued that saints were not needed as mediators between humans and the divine, and that saints bordered on idolatry. With no formalized ways of declaring sainthood in American society, broadly speaking, there are…

New Poll Finds “Growing Appetite” for Mixing Religion and Politics

By Sarah Posner

…riendly” to religion, while other are less sure: only 27% of mainline Protestants, 10% of black Protestants, and 24% of Catholics view the Democratic Party as “unfriendly” to religion. Notably, most Catholics—whose leadership expended much energy decrying and contesting the contraception coverage requirement in the Affordable Care Act—do not view the Democratic Party as “unfriendly” to religion. Still, though, there has been an uptick in whether t…

The Benedict Opt-Out: Why Christian Self-Isolation Won’t Work

By Kaya Oakes

…. The Benedict Option’s emphasis on withdrawal is Dreher’s solution. While statistics about the number of families who homeschool for religious reasons can be hard to find, it’s clear that beyond Dreher’s own Orthodox and Catholic examples, homeschooling, homesteading and a return to agrarian lifestyles—mostly lived out in deeply isolated areas—remain a topic of interest in many Christian communities. A cursory Google search for “Christian homesch…

Are Muslims Nuts?

By Haroon Moghul

…sad regime’s brutal crackdown against fellow Muslims and Arabs? Hurt and mistrust exists among Westerners and those in the Muslim world, and these can be addressed, or used to further cement those feelings in a cycle of violence. Those who called for protests, like those who make mocking movies, know well what they do, and what the consequences could be. In an age when the opinion of Muslims has begun to matter, and ideas can rocket around the pla…

Conversion Story #643 (not a real number)

By Amina Wadud

…age of a fractal? A pattern that adheres to its unity and form at the tiniest, most minute level as well as when projected out toward its largest manifestation at the mega level. They call it the handprint of God. To see such a visual depiction of a metaphysical idea was both a relief and a challenge to me. It almost took the mystery out of the whole idea of being a believer. It was no longer just an abstract idea for things Unseen. It was the man…

RDPulpit: I Am Not A Number: Gays and Lesbians and Opinion Polls

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…s as everyone else, all those people who do exist and are more than a mere statistic. For I am the theoretical lesbian asking for something very real: the ability to legally marry my partner of eight years. I have no proof to back this up, but it simply feels like my life, along with the lives of all the other LGBT statistics, are the most polled about. It seems every other week another poll comes out asking real live people about our theoretical…

Paul the Pluralist: Jesus’ Number Two Was Not a Christian

By Pamela Eisenbaum

…e belief that one cannot be saved by God through one’s deeds or “works.” Instead, one must be saved by “faith,” specifically faith in Jesus. Religion predicated on salvation by “works” is represented by Judaism. Within this paradigm, Judaism and Christianity are antithetical religions, with Judaism being the bad and most primitive kind and Christianity being the good and most evolved form. Thus, built into the supposedly Pauline idea of “justifica…

Sharing Many of the Same Flaws as its Subject ‘The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill’ Podcast Puts Blame Anywhere But Where It Belongs

By Jessica Johnson

…o which many of the white male evangelical experts interviewed on the podcast still ascribe. By not sharing certain detailssuch as Driscoll’s posts under the William Wallace II pseudonym complaining that the nation had become “pussified,” which could have been supplied in the podcast notes if Cosper (understandably) were reluctant to read them aloud—the vitriolic impact of Driscoll’s misogynistic, homophobic, violent, combative posture in language…

Gays Losing Value to “Value Voters”?

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…x marriage seems to be cooling its heels at number three, it’s presence is still felt in just about all aspects of the “value voters” belief system. With abortion remaining at the number one spot, it’s clear that all things sexual continue to occupy the minds of those who seem the most opposed to anyone actually having sex. It’s interesting to view the “value voter” summit in juxtaposition with a new survey conducted by the Des Moines Register. In…

New Poll Reveals a Paradox in Evangelical Support for Donald Trump

By Daniel Schultz

…w that to achieve victory in this fight, just like in the battles of the past, we still need the hand of our Lord and the grace of Almighty God. We have to have that. Trump continues to spew this bile day after day, broadcasting racist, anti-immigrant, transphobic and clearly authoritarian ideology. And still, two-thirds of White evangelicals approve of him. There might be a paradox between the expressed beliefs of Trump’s base and how they vote,…