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“Pregnancy is Not a Disease”: Birth of an Anti-Contraception Rallying Cry

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…we are. The notion that pregnancy is not an illness draws, I daresay uneasily, from a number of sources. There’s the classical notion that a thing’s nature is derived from its purpose, and the purpose of female bodies is to bear children. There’s the persistent early modern fear that women, especially privileged white women, are becoming overcivilized and unnatural, not having as many privileged white babies, relying on technology and pain relief…

Picasso’s Sacred Monster Eats Chicago: A Mystery Solved?

By Jeremy Biles

…art. Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate, the reflective bean-shaped orb in the art-filled Millennium Park, is perhaps the most popular piece on view, but Chicago also boasts pieces by Jean Dubuffet, Marc Chagall, Alexander Calder, and Joan Miró. Most recently, Seward Johnson’s enormous (and widely maligned) sculpture of Marilyn Monroe in her famous Seven Year Itch pose has taken up temporary residence in Pioneer Court, the flare of her windblown skirt prov…

Ex-Gay Conversion Therapy: Choosing Religion Over Sex

By Lynne Gerber

…tments—especially when those commitments are seen as reflections of God’s will. And while a pull that strong still does not make heterosexual married life possible for many homosexually-oriented men, for those whom it does it is important to acknowledge that changing orientation and desire sufficiently to maintain one relationship with one person of the opposite sex is far lower a bar for successful change than wholesale shift in sexual desire. Fo…

Change v. Change at NPR

By Warren Throckmorton

…t, is what the APA acknowledges as a proper way to recognize both the durability of sexual orientation as well as the importance of religious loyalties. There are other problems with the NPR story which Schumacher-Matos still did not catch. For instance, the NPR ombudsman called Wyler’s therapy “a softer, conversational treatment that allowed him to return to his conservative Christian roots.” In addition to mislabeling Wyler’s church, Schumacher-…

From Licking Floors to Praying for an Inept Government, Churches React to C-19

By Daniel Schultz

…that might have otherwise been ready to respond to the pandemic. “Yes, we will come through the coronavirus! Yes, we will come through the city quarantines,” he avowed. “Yes, we will come through an inept government that can’t handle a real crisis. Yes, we will come through an election season, in victory, I pray … Yes, we will come through all our troubles in hope.” Other Christians seem less pro-social, let us say. Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne, a…

The Year of the Abusive Priest

By Anthea Butler

…e priesthood, the Pope has ensured that the future of the Catholic Church will be in futile attempts at attempting to restore its evaporating moral authority. The Church will not be able to adequately insure its clergy with any reputable insurance agency against malpractice; educational institutions for youth will be stripped bare because of lawsuit payouts, and number of vocations, already low, will become even lower because of the stigma attache…

Protesters in Washington DC, the day before the January 6 insurrection, wrapped in American flags blow shofars.

Netanyahu’s Genocidal Religious Rhetoric isn’t Just an Appeal to the Israeli Right — He Has Another Constituency in Mind

By Brock Bahler

…ded: “We will not realize the promise of a better future unless we, the civilized world, are willing to fight the barbarians … The Bible says that there is a time for peace and a time for war. … Today, we draw a line between the forces of civilization and the forces of barbarism… May God Bless Israel.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMVs7akyMh0 The widespread assumption that Netanyahu’s religious rhetoric is a cynical appeal to his right-wing bas…

Modern Vampires: Your Neighbors and Spouses

By Joseph Laycock

…sure? Piss them off? The “basic facts” about the vampire community are readily available on the Internet. There are also numerous books that have been written by journalists for a popular audience. My hope is to challenge the reader’s assumptions about self-identified vampires. I think most people are very comfortable regarding vampires as a fringe group. The idea that vampires could be their neighbors or have real ramifications for a democratic s…

Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination with the Afterlife

By Lisa Miller

…oretto sketch of heaven I recently saw in the Louvre; passages from Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek; the Winans’ amazing gospel song “Heaven.” Heaven is such a potent and pervasive force in our culture, it’s just impossible to include everything. What are some of the biggest misconceptions about your topic? First, that Jews don’t believe in heaven. They do. Jews basically invented the basic idea of heaven as we understand it today: a place…

Top Five (Less Sensational, But More Dangerous) Things to Remember About Pat Robertson (1930-2023)

By Mark Hulsether

…to determine how well these accusations would hold up in court, we can easily imagine more diligent investigations. 3) Robertson becomes a leading presidential candidate. In the 1988 presidential primaries, Robertson was the early Republican front-runner—a classic case dramatizing his centrality to the NCR and the NCR’s centrality to the Republican Party. The moral of this story is not to retell embarrassing campaign anecdotes, but to bear in min…