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Death With Dignity: Combatting Religious Opposition to Physician-Assisted Suicide

By Krista Kapralos

…e drugs, but not one would approve his request. Stephen Wallace died on April 8, after what his family said was a painful struggle that could have been avoided had doctors respected his wishes. “Patients need professional medical support for their choice, not abandonment at their moment of need,” Dr. Tom Preston, a lead Death with Dignity advocate, said shortly after Wallace’s death. Opponents of the law say no doctor should have to do something t…

New Anti-Gay Snake Oil for Religious Right

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…nce is the last gasp of anti-gay groups and they will certainly tout this study, ﬂaws and all, as proof that same-sex couples make awful parents and raise terribly troubled kids. Again, it’s no shock – the religious right wing is always quick to twist science to its liking – and they will still continue to quote Robert Spitzer’s study on “ex-gays” even though Spitzer has disavowed his study and apologized to the LGBT community. The case being made…

U.S. Bishops Reject Pope Francis’ Priorities

By Patricia Miller

…g: evangelization (“a personal encounter and relationship with Jesus”), family and marriage (promotion of the “traditional” family), human life and dignity (opposition to abortion and euthanasia), vocations and ongoing formation (shoring up the rapidly declining number of priests and nuns) and, of course, religious freedom (Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, who arranged Kim Davis’ meeting with Pope Francis, received two standing ovations from the bis…

When God and Gender Mix: New Book Examines the Southern Holiness Movement

By Colin Chapell

…, then it will change how you view your own masculinity and femininity. Similarly, if having children matters most to you, then you can only be truly “manly” or “feminine” if you have kids. Is there anything you had to leave out? Historians always want to include every interesting anecdote and vignette from their research. We spend so much time in the archives, getting to know our subjects, and often working with very, very personal letters, diari…

Renovating Marriage, One Gay Couple at a Time

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…on of marriage,” and urged Christians to rethink their opposition: Before Wilberforce, Christians saw slavery as Biblical and part of the God-given ordering of creation. Similarly in South Africa the Dutch Reformed Church supported apartheid because it was Biblical and part of the God-given order of creation. No one now supports either slavery or apartheid. The Biblical texts have not changed; our interpretation has. Certainly, those who oppose sa…

Sacred&Profane: The Living Dead

By Gary Laderman

…f the twentieth century, so these accounts claim, the holiday became primarily child’s play, and a secular, fun-filled, consumer-oriented, neighborly celebration where the dead were no longer “really” present and potentially dangerous to the living, but rather part of a “pretend” world imagined for the sake of the children, who are naïve about the reality of death and the powers of the dead. Given this complicated and grave history, Halloween is e…

Pop Culture Yogi B. K. S. Iyengar Dead at 95

By Andrea R. Jain

…e 1960s that it no longer opposed prevailing cultural norms and became readily available to the masses. The 1960s proved to be the ideal time for the global dissemination of yoga, since it witnessed the British-American counterculture and the lifting of immigration restrictions to much of Western Europe and the United States, resulting in an influx of Indian gurus ready and eager to deliver yoga to a counterculture grasping for something radicall…

Will Iowa’s Abortion Ban Respect Religious Freedom?

By Christine Ryan

…ould not want me to be in a situation for the rest of my life or [for] a child to be in a situation for the rest of its life to be tortured by somebody.” A Catholic woman with two children who terminated a medically threatening pregnancy explained, “I prayed on it, and honestly, my solution at that point was not to let my children lose their mother.” Others described being guided by religious obligations to oneself. A seminary student in New York…

Mormon Rejection of Trump Embarrassing for Evangelicals?

By Neil J. Young

…wn to a Trump-Cruz faceoff, Cruz would likely win the evangelical vote.) While there’s a lot more to understand still about evangelical support for Trump, there’s no doubt it has occasioned spirited debate and real soul searching in evangelical circles. The anti-Trump evangelical movement has been robust and active for several months now, doing everything it can to undercut Trump’s standing among evangelical voters, rally behind his opponents, and…

American Christianity Is Changing Fast: Five Stories to Watch in 2016

By Richard Flory

…zational structure that will both attract and retain church members. This will likely continue, but will churches adapt by figuring out what people want in church, or will they continue to stagnate and decline? On the other hand, what alternative forms, if any, of “church” might people be forming to replace the religious communities that they have left? 2. Increased LGBT Acceptance Within Evangelicalism Although issues related to LGBT identities h…