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Why Anti-Gay Bullying is a Theological Issue

By Cody J. Sanders

…ed had an external source: the cruel, unremitting, merciless pounding of daily humiliation, taunting, harassment, and violence. And all of this pain visited upon these young lives because of one thing they had in common: they were not heterosexual. These suicides are not acts of “escape,” or a “cop-out” from facing life. When LGBT people resort to suicide, they are responding to far more than the pain of a few individual insults or humiliating occ…

The American Media’s Longterm Ambivalence About the Papacy

By Peter Manseau

…interested in iconoclasm. When the new pope is soon shown within Time’s familiar red frame he will likely appear in full and flattering light, but only briefly. Is it any wonder that the last newsweekly standing would gravitate toward stories of once-unquestioned authority undermined and reduced to a shadow of its former significance? This is, after all, a story it knows quite well. *This essay was adapted from a chapter in The Oxford Handbook of…

This Year in Satanism

By Joseph Laycock

…wed to charge Greaves with grave desecration, but no arrests were made. APRIL In April, the Satanic Temple announced its “Protect Children Project,” which opposes the use of corporal punishment in schools. It encouraged students to assert their religious conviction that their body is inviolable and cannot be subjected to abusive punishment. The Satanic Temple offered to put school boards “on notice” if they violate the religious rights of students…

More Than Big Hair and Money: Jim, Tammy Faye and the Media “Holy Wars” of the 80s

By John Wigger

…Heritage USA, and a private satellite network that reached into fourteen million homes in the US. That year, six million people visited Heritage USA. Jim and Tammy lived in luxury, buying vacation homes, expensive cars and clothes, and traveling first class with an entourage. Then it all came crashing down. In March 1987 Bakker resigned in disgrace after his 1980 sexual encounter with Jessica Hahn in a Florida hotel room became public. Stories em…

What Do ‘The Christians’ Believe? Easter Reflections from a Non-Christian

By Gary Laderman

…God’s revealed word? Any investigation beneath the surface of these possibilities would reveal the impossibility of consensus. Just take a quick glance at conservative responses to Brian McLaren’s A New Kind of Christianity to get a feeling for the way this debate takes place in real time. And beyond the sorts of theological, political, and institutional differences among Christians of various stripes is the simple but complicating fact of globa…

Holy Father, You’re Not Helping: The Problem with the Pope’s Plan to Consecrate Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary

By Katherine Kelaidis

…to a series of appearances of the Virgin Mary reported by three shepherd children in the small village of Fatima, Portugal between the spring 1916 and the autumn of 1917. During the appearance, the children received a series of prophecies and requests, among them that Russia (then in the midst of the Bolshevik Revolution) would be consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary so that Russia would be converted. While it’s easy for Western Christians,…

Glenn Beck’s Salvation Army

By Peter Montgomery

…is not asking you. He is commanding us as a people to get behind Him. He will right the wrongs. We will have to pay a price because we lived outside of His laws. We will have to pay a price, but every day we don’t get behind Him, the price gets bigger. It gets harder. Get behind Him. He will be our shield because these people are not enemies of ours. They are enemies of Him. They are enemies of man’s freedom.” “Commanding us as a people.” Doesn’t…

Orthodox Jews Begin to Reckon with Sexual Abuse

By Paul Berger

…s families take. And only if the beth din deems the allegation to be true will the family be permitted to go to the authorities. Ocean County Prosecutor Marlene Lynch Ford, who brought the case against Yosef Kolko, is concerned that such actions limit a prosecutor’s ability to secure a conviction. “By having a diversion to a different type of tribunal, no matter how well intentioned the people involved are, it ultimately makes the job of getting a…

New Reports Reveal Global Persecution of Nonbelievers

By Austin Dacey

…tian. Saber was rumored to be circulating the Innocence of Muslims film trailer on his Facebook page. In a video blog, he spoke of the importance of exercising critical reasoning about religious matters. While in custody, Saber was slashed in the throat by razor-wielding prisoners after a guard told them of his “crime” and he was compelled to give false statements. The legal charges were “contempt of Islam and Christianity,” “insulting the divine…

My Business, Myself: Piercing the Corporate Veil

By Howard M. Friedman

…their business firms. These owners may be unaware of the new personal liability for business debts—including liabilities to the government—that they are risking by equating themselves with their business for purposes of religious expression. They may be inadvertently inviting the government to hold them to their word—that they and the business are one—when it comes to other matters as well. Hobby Lobby Stores has become the poster child for busin…