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Mike Johnson isn’t Just Your Average Christian Right Avatar — He’s Influenced by Fringe Movements Unfamiliar to Most Political Analysts

By Annika Brockschmidt

…as the form of Christianity from which he comes, are all steeped in the influence of this movement.” Posner also stresses the importance of the influence of dominionism and Christian Reconstructionism, over the question whether or not someone identifies with these labels: “The other important thing to remember is that Christian Reconstruction and dominionism (and remember Christian Reconstructionism teaches dominionism) are so ingrained in the Ch…

After More Mass Shootings It’s Time to Call Out White Supremacy in the Pews

By Peter Laarman

…ental disturbance and the fact that American civilians have more assault rifles in their possession than does the U.S. military. All well and good. But we have too few leaders who will talk about the deeper roots of these things or attempt to explain why American culture is “exceptional”—exceptional in its toxicity, that is. A growing number of truth telling historians are eager to help us discover these deeper roots if we are willing to listen. H…

How to Make Nones and Lose Money: Study Shows Cost of Catholic Sex Abuse Scandals

By Kaya Oakes

…al, leaving the American church with a massive money problem and shrinking numbers of parishioners on the eve of Pope Francis’ arrival. A recent study by Nicholas Bottan and Ricardo Perez-Trugila in the Journal of Public Economics revealed that, unsurprisingly, “a scandal causes a persistent decline in the local Catholic affiliation and church attendance.” “Some Catholics join other religious denominations during the first three years after a scan…

Raelians’ “Clitoraid” Met With Suspicion in Burkina Faso

By Joseph Laycock

…rci Bowers has worked with the program extensively. Clitoraid engaged in a number of fund raising projects, including an “Adopt a Clitoris” campaign and a number of partnerships with companies that make vibrators. This funding was used to recruit and fund a team of surgeons (who are not Raelians) and to establish a “pleasure hospital” in Burkina Faso. There is some controversy as to what percentage of women who undergo the surgery will be able to…

Does Religion Condemn Homosexuality?

By Michael Bronski

…not, in the United States you will be subject to laws that are directly influenced by Christianity’s historical ambivalence about, and even fear of, the body and sex. A dominant line of Christian theology has identified the “lusts of the flesh” with human fallenness—sometimes called “original sin”—and seen sex and the body as places where humans are especially liable to exhibit possessiveness, greed, and corruption. A lesser tradition within Chri…

Anti-Gay Violence Rages in Gambia; Conservative ‘Complementarity’ Confab; Coming Out in Iraq Can Be Death Sentence; Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…mation of marriage. “For on earth marriage binds us across the ages in the flesh, across families in the flesh, and across the fearful and wonderful divide of man and woman, in the flesh. This is not ours to alter,” it reads. “It is ours, however, to encourage and celebrate….This we affirm.” But in practice, it ended with something more significant—a strengthening of alliances. The event forged and deepened relationships across faith lines. “This…

7 Women Scholars On the Gender Divide in Religious Studies, the Power of Mentors, and Leading While Female

By Rebecca Barrett-Fox

…studies” model we have used (i.e., Latino Studies, Asian Studies, etc.) influence how we move forward? SCHOLARS WITHOUT BORDERS Laurie Maffly-Kipp: At the most fundamental level, I’m interested in understanding why people do the things they do. And as a historian, I’m particularly interested in behaviors that don’t make obvious sense to me. Human beings are such puzzles and are motivated by so many different things. It takes a whole arsenal of ap…

‘My Name is Legion’: Sources and Forces of White Supremacy in the U.S.

By R. Drew Smith

…hate group and white supremacist group content has skyrocketed—even as the numbers of those groups have themselves noticeably increased. For example, the number of known hate groups is reported to have increased from roughly 600 in the year 2000 to 930 in 2014. Moreover, major television networks such as Fox TV have ushered hate content and white supremacist content into the media mainstream, featuring racialized rhetoric that ranges from disparag…

Single, But Married To Jesus

By Anthea Butler

…Having a husband meant that they could not give their ultimate all for the number one man on most African-American womens’ lips, and it’s not Denzel. It’s Jesus. For many women in churches like COGIC, being in love with Jesus means that most other men, whether desirable as a husband or not, stood in the way of the number one relationship. One person I interviewed even had a name for it: “being loosed” from your husband to do the Lord’s work. “Bein…

Francis Must Make Changes to Have a Real Effect

By Patricia Miller

…s remained fairly steady in recent decades is “the disproportionately high number of Catholics among immigrants to the U.S.,” which has masked “the large number of people who have left the Catholic church.” According to Pew, approximately one-third of those raised Catholic have left the church and 10 percent of all Americans are former Catholics. If you were a business losing one-third of your customers, wouldn’t you want to make some changes? Sur…