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New Anti-Gay Snake Oil for Religious Right

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…wledges limitations in her study, including the fact that the families who participated are a nonrandom sample. Such limitations were understandable in the 1980s when the study began since “ the targeted population was largely hidden because of the long history of discrimination against lesbian and gay people, so the possibility of recruiting a representative sample of prospective lesbian mothers was even more unrealistic than it is today.” The re…

U.S. Bishops Reject Pope Francis’ Priorities

By Patricia Miller

…anasia), 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 bishops.). Then the debate turned to the USCCB’s quadrennial “Faithful Citizenship” voting guide. The bishops had voted earlier to revise the 2007 edition prepared for the 2008 election, whic…

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

By Colin Chapell

…ge how they understand their own identity. If academic achievement and the number or type of initials after your name is the most important thing in the world to you, 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 anec…

Renovating Marriage, One Gay Couple at a Time

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…f 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 same-sex marriage on religious grounds would hesitate to compare themselves to those who supported slavery and apartheid, but even conservative religious pollst…

Sacred&Profane: The Living Dead

By Gary Laderman

…a few years ago to dress up as Elvis (not the young one, I’m afraid!) and participate in the ghoulish fun of resurrecting and playing with the dead. While I have a predilection for the macabre generally, and tend to be a little too preoccupied with the dead specifically, I am not opposed to the celebratory, harmless Halloween activities associated with dressing up in outlandish costumes, knocking on strangers’ doors, and consuming lots and lots a…

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

By Andrea R. Jain

…tes about yoga’s identity and transmission by introducing an invocation to Patanjali at the beginning of each yoga class, though he insisted that while yoga was a part of an ancient South Asian yoga transmission it was not specific to any religious tradition and was universally accessible. In 1975, Iyengar established the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute, named after his wife who had died in 1973. The Institute, which functioned as the c…

Will Iowa’s Abortion Ban Respect Religious Freedom?

By Christine Ryan

…light from the US Supreme Court, that liberty has been wiped out. Planned Parenthood has dropped that particular lawsuit, but there may be another path forward for advocates of reproductive rights. In her dissenting opinion, Iowa’s Chief Justice Susan Christensen pointed to the state’s new Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and highlighted a recent Indiana case where the Court of Appeals held that a similar abortion law violated the religio…

Mormon Rejection of Trump Embarrassing for Evangelicals?

By Neil J. Young

…weekend, while Mormons are overwhelmingly Republican they diverge from the party’s base on several important issues that have animated Trump’s campaign. In contrast to Trump’s extreme immigration proposals, for example, the LDS Church has long pushed for compassionate immigration reform and Mormons generally hold pro-immigrant views. When Trump proposed a ban on all Muslims entering the United States, the LDS Church took the rare step of respondin…

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

By Richard Flory

…f parish model, although the independence of most of these churches (as compared to the Catholic model) sets them apart. How long will this trend continue, and in what ways will it develop over the coming years? One of the drivers of this effort is related to the desires of younger Christians to live and work in urban areas. But with the influx of mostly younger and white members, what happens to the city, and the Christian voice that remains? 5….

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

By Anne Eggebroten

…Benedict XVI set in motion any change to canon law? Will he step down or ask any complicit bishops to resign? Will he even order a Church-wide investigation? Unlikely. Instead, his moral authority will continue to erode. The number of priests will continue to dwindle. Catholic women will assume more and more administrative and other posts, and the hypocrisy of refusing to ordain them will become increasingly apparent. The house of cards will fall…