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Why We Must Reclaim “Religious Freedom” from Christian Conservatives

By Bill Berkowitz

…rkowitz: Why did you write When Exemption is the Rule? Frederick Clarkson: Most everyone to the left of the religious right is behind the curve on one of the central issues of our time: religious freedom. Six years ago, most people did not see the storm clouds on the horizon as the Christian Right mounted a major effort to redefine religious freedom. Conservative evangelical leaders working in close—and I think underappreciated—alliance with leade…

Liberty University’s In-House Conversion ‘Therapist’ Retires, But Will the Christian School Cease This Discredited Practice?

By Lucas Wilson

On January 13, Liberty University, the world’s largest and most notorious fundamentalist college located in Lynchburg, VA, announced that Pastor Dane Emerick, who functioned as its in-house conversion therapist, had retired. This news comes to the delight and relief of many alumni who were subjected to his “counseling.” But some wonder whether Emerick’s retirement marks the end of Liberty’s conversion therapy program or whether another damaging c…

Who’s Scared of Polygamy? A Restrained Case for the “Slippery Slope” Argument

By William E. Smith

…at the “new permissive consensus” built over the years by social liberals, most strikingly around same-sex marriage, is the primary driver for this uptick of support for polygamy. Douthat points to cultural developments such as the airing of certain TV shows (e.g. Big Love and Sister Wives), the growing polyamory movement, and the “logic of expressive individualism” to buttress his case. By 2040, he speculates, polygamy will be the law of the land…

Republicans “Evangelizing” Catholic Voters

By Patricia Miller

…is that Bush, an Episcopalian convert to Catholicism, is in many ways the most traditional Catholic of the sizeable number of Catholics jostling for the GOP nod. Bobby Jindal has labeled himself a “Catholic Evangelical” and even hosted “The Response,” a prayer extravaganza that amounts to a full-out paean to Christian nationalism. Rick Santorum has long courted the Christian right with his anti-abortion rhetoric and was once named by Time magazin…

The Great Secret of Constitutional Law: Why Proposition 8 Will (and perhaps should) Be Upheld

By Bruce Ledewitz

…n an issue is being fought in the courts it is public opinion that matters most. We hope that this article will spark a lively discussion. —ed. In a 2002 Newsweek poll, 87% of Americans responded that the words “under God” should remain in the Pledge of Allegiance. Even with the increasing secularization underway in American society, well over three-quarters of the American people undoubtedly feel the same today. What should we conclude if 75% of…

Awakening, Counter-Awakening, and the End of Church

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…and he has good reason for doing that. People don’t understand Mormonism. Most American Protestants and Catholics have a fundamental distrust or uncertainty about Mormonism, so he wants to play it down. If he brings on a vice presidential candidate like (Virginia governor) Bob McDonnell, there’s no way it’s going to be diminished. I suspect that the vice presidential candidate will be the person who carries the narrative for the religious right,…

5 Reasons You Shouldn’t Overthink the New Pew Data’s Impact on Politics

By Sarah Posner

…angelical Protestants, black Protestants, mainline Protestants, Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Orthodox Christians. What are the potential effects of these changes politically? Before you do your secularist victory lap, here are five key considerations to keep in mind: 1. The first report on Pew’s data released today does not include its analysis of respondents’ religious intensity or orthodoxy, nor of the respondents’ political and…

More than Half of Mississippi GOP Primary Voters Believe the President is Muslim

By Sarah Posner

…tates because even though he lags behind his competitors among the states’ most conservative voters, Gingrich and Santorum are splitting those voters, which could benefit Romney. For all the talk of Romney performing poorly among evangelicals, though, he’s really still in the race for their votes: Among Alabama evangelicals, who make up 68% of the electorate, Santorum (33%) has an indistinguishable advantage over Gingrich’s 32%, while Romney is dr…

For Buddhism, Science is Not a Killer of Religion

By Paul Wallace

…despite scientific cosmology, there are a large number of mortal creatures—most of them non-human—inhabiting a spectacular 31-tiered cosmos, from the hell beings and hungry ghosts way down below to the (mortal) gods and goddesses in the heavens far above. There is karma, which you spend countless lives trying to work off. Once that’s finished, one of two things can happen. If you are of the Theravada school you are extinguished like a blown-out ca…

Muslims in America, Fifty Years Later: New Poll Shows Pride and Optimism In the Face of Bias

By Edward E. Curtis IV

…ordinary Americans as politically radical and thus dangerous. The globe’s most powerful symbol of resistance to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War was the Nation of Islam’s most famous member, boxer Muhammad Ali. In 1967, Ali refused induction in the U.S. armed forces to protest the war, and as a result, was forced to give up his heavyweight boxing crown. In 2017, even though no Muslim American critic of U.S. foreign policy has the international…