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The Progress of Christ in Commercial America: A Review of Chris Lehmann’s The Money Cult

By Peter Laarman

…one heard nary a hint of organized Protestant protest as Wall Street got bailed out while Main Street was left to fend for itself and as Bible Belt states decided that it was better for uninsured poor people to go without medical attention than to expand federally-paid Medicaid coverage or create health care exchanges under the Affordable Care Act. At the root of this depressing defeat for a prophetic and socially-conscious Christian faith, in Leh…

‘Cult’ Is an Inaccurate, Unhelpful and Dangerous Label for Followers of Trump, QAnon, and 1/6

By Catherine Wessinger

…emocrats who are described as a Satan-worshipping cabal of pedophiles who kill children to obtain their life essence. The individual who was posting “Q drops” online hasn’t posted since Trump lost the election to Joe Biden, nevertheless the QAnon conspiracy outlook remains influential. Subsequent to Trump’s loss in the 2020 presidential election, members of the millennial movement(s) that view him as their savior have reacted in ways that believer…

Religion and Other Animals

By Paul Waldau

…pirituality. In fact, “religion and animals” themes appear in a surprising number of places—one example is Peter Miller’s article “Jane Goodall” in the December 1995 National Geographic, in which he discusses Goodall’s belief that expressions of awe by chimpanzees at a waterfall site “may resemble the emotions that led early humans to religion.” The debate over whether or not our animal neighbors can be “religious” is but one issue in the growing…

No Conspiracy Theories Needed: Abortion Foes Cry Racism

By Kathryn Joyce

…n part by denouncing her as a bigot and a racist who wanted “to reduce the number of children [born] to the nation’s poorest economic groups, which tend to be persons of color and other minorities.” The Pro-Life Action League made a similar criticism this week against the Guttmacher Institute, claiming that the Institute’s call for publicly-funded birth control “takes aim at the poor by recommending more government spending on programs to reduce t…

Evangelical Pastor Argues for Full LGBT Inclusion: “I Think It’s Inevitable”

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…to a point of acceptance. I’ve been surprised at how often my colleagues will dismiss this argument. What they fail to recognize is that the biblical teaching on remarriage is very strict. The issue is not when a divorced person remarries they commit one act of adultery, the issue biblically is that they are married to someone else’s spouse, so the nature of their relationship is extra-marital and outside the bounds of holiness. It is precisely a…

Islamic Intellectual Leadership at a Crossroads

By Amina Wadud

…ed to address these topics no matter what their intellectual discipline? Failure to do so is tantamount to moral irresponsibility. The double whammy comes when we do address them, because then we are immediately cast into the category of activist, and therefore not intellectual or intellectual enough. Let’s face it, knowledge is power and to enter the world of ideas is powerful. In 2009 a Wahabbi-funded publication called “The 500 Most Influential…

Lessons from the Defeat of the Oklahoma Personhood Bill

By Sarah Morice-Brubaker

…, on the advisability of amendments to the bill; and 2) The development of ill will between the personhood lobby and the Republican representatives. To recap: In the past few weeks, Oklahoma house Republicans have been heavily lobbied by both Oklahomans for Life and Personhood Oklahoma (a state affiliate of Personhood USA). Those groups firmly opposed any amendment to the bill — even amendments that would protect access to IVF and birth control, a…

Two Women and a Mosque: A Convert Community Grows in Panama City

By Aliyya Swaby

…loth to drape over my hair and chest. Bell-Munajj said she enjoys the visibility. While she was shopping at the fish market in Panama City, a West Indian man parking his car called out to her with the Muslim greeting of peace: “Assalam Alaykum.” She hopes Al Haqq will draw people like him from the margins into a larger community. Though Islam in Panama has a different history and context than in the United States, I saw my parents in some of the…

The Catholic-Evangelical (Non-)Coalition

By Patricia Miller

…was morally wrong, which was slightly higher than general opinion (49%), while three-quarters of white Evangelicals said it was wrong. Similarly, Smith found that by the early 1980s Catholics were “more liberal than Protestants on approving of premarital sex and of sex education.” On the newer issue of same-sex marriage, Catholic opinion has tended to be slightly more favorable than the population as a whole and way more favorable than Evangelical…

Contrary to Claims of Anti-Trans Muslims, LGBTQ+ Acceptance is Widespread in the History of Islam

By Ali Olomi

…ans of the household and even held office as advisors. In Iraq, the mustarjil are born female, but present as men. In Wilfred Thesiger’s The Marsh Arabs the guide, Amara explains, “A mustarjil is born a woman. She cannot help that; but she has the heart of a man, so she lives like a man.” When asked if the mustarjil are accepted, Amara replies “Certainly. We eat with her and she may sit in the mudhif.” Amara goes on to describe how mustarjil have…