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

By Andrea R. Jain

…counterculture of Indian ascetic renouncers, to the counterculture of turn-of-the-century American practitioners of tantra, to the counterculture of Transcendentalism and metaphysical religion, to the counterculture of proponents of physical culture. It wasn’t until the 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,…

Will Iowa’s Abortion Ban Respect Religious Freedom?

By Christine Ryan

…e, the result is the same—a termination of a pregnancy. The law is so clear-cut that anti-abortion activists and states cannot mount good-faith legal arguments in opposition. Instead, they attack the plaintiffs’ beliefs, claiming they aren’t genuinely religious. This tactic rests on lazy assumptions that religion is intrinsically anti-abortion and bears no relationship to the lived experiences of religious people who have abortions. What it does o…

Mormon Rejection of Trump Embarrassing for Evangelicals?

By Neil J. Young

…opponents, and celebrate any of his political setbacks. That’s why the near-total silence among anti-Trump evangelicals over his trouncing in Utah yesterday seems so odd. Yet that silence also reveals the complicated evangelical-Mormon partnership. While evangelicals and Mormons have no doubt found themselves allied in many political causes through the years, American evangelicalism also has a long history of attacking Mormonism as a false Christi…

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

By Richard Flory

…attention, from religious observers as well as religious leaders, is the so-called “Rise of the Religious Nones.” The number of dropouts/defectors from church involvement has risen significantly over the last several years, such that about 23 percent of the American population now claims no religious affiliation. They leave for many reasons, ranging from a general disillusionment with large-scale institutions in general to the politicization of re…

An Unholy Holy Week: Is the All-Male Rule of the Roman Catholic Church Self-Destructing?

By Anne Eggebroten

…ers, or “marriages” surrounded by a conspiracy of silence. In fact, the all-male rule of the Roman Catholic Church is self-destructing. Ordained men, from priests to the Pope, are proving that it wasn’t a good idea to leave Church governance to an old boys’ network. They have been focused on forgiving each other and covering up crimes “to avoid scandal”—that is, to protect each other, their power, and the church’s wealth. “Call No Man Father” Here…

The Faith Outreach Canard

By Sarah Posner

…e Democrats didn’t listen to him enough, blames these losses on the Democrats’ lack of faith outreach. But as the political scientists note, there’s no proof that this was the problem. And given the across-the-board Democratic gains in the years Sapp cites as proof that his prescription works, there’s no evidence that his prescription would provide a cure to what ails the Democrats now….

Special Hell: Progressive Catholics Reckon With the Rise of Trump

By Patricia Miller

…ble to discriminate against LGBTQ individuals and couples and create “carve-outs” from recognition of same-sex marriage. “Catholics are acutely aware of the threat posed by a potential alliance between VP-elect Pence and the USCCB in expanding religious exemptions,” said Marianne Duddy-Burke, head of the Catholic LGBTQ rights organization Dignity USA. She reports that members of Dignity were very concerned about “potential rollbacks of gains in ci…

55% of Utah Mormons Believe LGBT People can “Change”

By Joanna Brooks

…ific rite and have been marshaled in opposition to the legalization of same-sex marriage. These too deserve to be carefully studied and understood. Any doctrine that would be used to exclude a good number of the earth’s people from full equality before the law and God should be very carefully examined. When it comes to gay issues, most Mormons have only the muddiest understanding of what life is like for gay people or about the doctrinal reasons t…

The Devil is in the Details

By Amina Wadud

…aid off in order to go. People get confused by this, because one of the pre-conditions is that one must be debt-free. That doesn’t mean I don’t have an amount due against my credit card (or my mortgage, if I still had one), but it means I have keep my payments up in accordance to my agreements. No overdue amounts. I’ve done my mock packing. What is mock packing, you ask? Well, for this trip I have almost all new clothes, and I need to make sure th…

What Pence and Kaine Reveal About Divides in Catholicism

By Patricia Miller

…social justice issues for left-leaning Catholics and sexual restraint, law-and-order, and a muscular national defense for right-leaning Catholics. And, as Jack Jenkins notes at Think Progress: …if this sort of dissenting spirit was unique among modern American Catholics, one could plausibly argue that the United States has created an environment that bifurcates Catholics in unusual ways. But it’s not: In 2014, a global survey conducted by Univisi…