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Catholics for Choice Blasts New Proposed Contraception Coverage Rule

By Sarah Posner

…ocial services organizations, and Catholic hospitals, said Hutchinson. The new proposed rule permits these organizations, she said, to self-certify that they are entitled to the work-around, or accommodation, that places the onus of providing and paying for the contraception coverage on the insurance company. Hutchinson said she was “dubious, maybe cynical, about how easy and how smooth the process of making sure the folks who do need, the employ…

How Robert Bellah (1927-2013) Changed the Study of Religion

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…around the world, but when he first wrote “Civil Religion,” it was a bold new idea and an innovative way of thinking. This was when I first knew Bellah, in Berkeley in the late 1960s, when I was a graduate student and later his colleague in the religious studies program. I saw how influential Bellah was on generations of graduate students—not only in sociology but also in religious studies. During those days he frequently reigned over the religio…

Christian Nationalism is Authentically Christian — And According to a New Poll Most White Evangelicals are Supporters

By Chrissy Stroop

…“A Christian Nation? Understanding the Threat of Christian Nationalism to American Democracy and Culture,” divides Americans into Christian nationalism adherents, sympathizers, skeptics, and rejecters using an index derived from their agreement or disagreement—and the strength of their agreement or disagreement—with the following Christian nationalist statements: The U.S. government should declare America a Christian nation. U.S. laws should be b…

Obama to Cave on Bush Tax Cuts: Letter to the Washingtonians, Chapter 1

By Daniel Schultz

…in the rejection of all that came before that fall might be used to seed a new time in our history. I hoped that my nation might be headed in a new direction. I hoped that my people might be more generous and open. I hoped that the wars might finally come to an end. I hoped that the government might rule fairly, for all. What have we received instead? A week after the election, we find that those who laugh at the idea of justice are returned to po…

New Anti-Gay Snake Oil for Religious Right

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…ngs, right? Maybe, but her research has been backed up by the likes of the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the National Association of Social Workers, “who all conﬁrm that LGBT parents make good parents,” Freedom to Marry reiterated. No study is ever perfect, and Gartrell acknowledges limitations in her study, including the fact that the families who participated are a nonrandom sample. Such limitations…

Bobby Jindal Hypes His Christian Cred at Liberty U.

By Murali Balaji

…ork. My story is somewhat similar to Jindal’s. I grew up in small towns in New Jersey, New York, and Ohio before my family settled in the Philadelphia suburbs in the 1980s, and I was subjected to the worst types of bullying and racism during my elementary school years. A few choice examples: I was called the ‘n’-word on a daily basis; was threatened with detention if I didn’t sing gospel songs in my public school music class; and a teacher once as…

How a Pioneer of Branding Invented Christian Fundamentalism

By Daniel Silliman

…aging and trademarking, as it were, old-time religion. How is the story of American capitalism also the story of modern American Christianity? They’re cultural twins. They’re both drawing from the same set of ideas about the nature of self and society that was, frankly, new in the days after the Civil War. These are the idea of the individual being the basic unit of analysis, that individual choices are really what matters, that’s how you create y…

The Only Thing Evangelicals Will Never Forgive Is Not Hating the “Other”

By Frank Schaeffer

…trate the liturgical practices led by largely anonymous priests. The North American evangelical/fundamentalist brand of Christianity is the religious version of the American civil religion: consumerist individualism. Today’s “Stylites” are more often found in private jets, but they still have followers who conflate holiness with success American style—in other words, as measured by money, possessions, numbers, and (above all) celebrity status. The…

Masculinity and Mass Violence: When Will We Acknowledge the Smoking Gendered Pronoun Hiding in Plain Sight?

By Elizabeth Drescher

…an who killed 13 people (himself included) and wounded four in Binghamton, New York in 2009; John Allen Muhammad, the Islamic, African American “Beltway Sniper,” who, with Jamaica-born partner Lee Boyd Malvo, killed at least 10 people in the Washington DC area through the month of October 2002. Many of these shooters, regardless of race or religion, had known mental health issues. Likewise, a substantial number of the men on the Brady Campaign lis…

The Uses and Abuses of the Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

By A. E. Brooks-Key

…d image of King within political discourse. As previously discussed on RD, American civic holidays, like the nation itself, are in a time of crisis. New holidays such as Juneteenth have been added to the federal holiday calendar, while others face renewed scrutiny and calls for abolishment. It seems one of the few holidays to pass through this era unscathed is the King holiday. Often, however, I’m forced to ask myself, “What does the King holiday…