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Navy Yard Shooting: Why It’s Not a Religion Story

By Michael Jerryson

…2011 that there were wide-sweeping cuts across the nation to mental health services. Just recently, the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) announced that New York governor Andrew Cuomo planned to close psychiatric services, including the planned 2017 closure of the Mid-Hudson Forensic Psychiatric Center in New Hampton. We should indeed be obsessed with ending gun violence; we should also be deeply concerned about how we as a society take c…

Most U.S. Catholics Back Marriage Equality, But Knights of Columbus Pour Millions into Opposition

By Peter Montgomery

…campaigns. How do progressive Catholics respond to the combined forces of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the money machines that are the Knights of Columbus and NOM? “What we have on our side is the belief of the majority of American Catholics,” says Dignity’s Duddy-Burke, noting that more than half of American Catholics support marriage equality. She says “It is not consistent with the gospel for any segment of the church to be using…

Identity Theology: Political Correctness with a Halo

By Carlos Wilton

…of himself.” “Those who cling to this mode of thinking leave behind a God-centered study for a radical focus on humanity,” Thorp laments. The concept of “identity theology” sounds suspiciously like that all-purpose complaint beloved of the right wing, “political correctness.” Charges of political correctness function as a useful tool for those who are weary of repeated invitations to rethink old prejudices. “Identity theology” is simply political…

The Quietly Crumbling Wall of Separation

By Robert Marus

…orge W. Bush and his allies continually employed when he attempted, as the centerpiece of his domestic agenda, to expand government’s ability to fund social services through direct grants to churches and other deeply religious groups. He depicted statutory and regulatory barriers that had, in the past, prevented such grants as unfair impediments to churches participating in the nation’s social-service fabric. Bush and his surrogates contended thei…

The End of Jewish Education As We Know It?

By Benjamin Weiner

…but the model took hold elsewhere, and today every major Jewish population center has at least one branch of its own. Federation funders created Boston’s BJE in the early 1920s. As the first large scale generation of American-born Jews started coming of age, there was growing concern that these young people would be lost to assimilation without a cohesive program of Jewish education to sustain their identities. In its first incarnation, the BJE ac…

Is Joel Osteen, Success Mag Cover Boy, Really “God’s Best”?

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…y gospel of sorts that while it may leave people smiling at the end of the service, it has conveyed little to them about what God might define as true success. Even Barbara Ehrenreich in her new book Bright-Sided notes about Osteen’s message how, “God plays only a supporting role, and by no means an indispensible one, in the Osteen’s universe. Gone is the mystery and awe; he has been reduced to a kind of majordomo or personal assistant. He fixeth…

The Biggest Lesson Learned From the US War in Afghanistan is How Little We’ve Learned

By Sara Kamali

…ghan civilians against the Taliban onslaught in the past two decades. 2500 American servicemembers have also lost their lives in service of their country in Afghanistan. Afghans and Americans alike bear the physical and mental wounds of war. Perhaps the only lesson that has been learned has had too steep a price. To prevent ongoing devastation in the current landscape of perpetual warfare, and so that whatever formulation the presence of the US mi…

New Report: White Evangelicals are America’s Most Anti-Trans Demographic, But Encouraging Data Overall

By Chrissy Stroop

…obby for. With respect to religious exemptions, the report notes that most Americans (63%) “oppose allowing small business owners to refuse service to LGBTQ people if doing so violates their religious beliefs.” By contrast, per PRRI: “white evangelical Protestants remain the only major religious group in which a majority favors religiously based service refusals, and their support for these exemptions is increasing. A majority of white evangelical…

Statement on NAR & Christian Nationalism Answers Few Questions But Exposes Growing Rifts in the Movement

By Frederick Clarkson and André Gagné

…cooperate in spiritually equipping and activating believers for effective service in every sphere of life, including the marketplace, political, education, media, arts, family and church… Their objective is to establish the Kingdom of God on earth. The signatories don’t acknowledge, let alone explain, why they’re distancing themselves from their own history and the very church offices that define their movement. But they do offer a few clues—less…

What’s Eating Mitt Romney?

By Joanna Brooks

…s an uneasy adaptation of the culture of Mormon leadership to a mainstream American political setting. From the time they are 12 years old—if not younger—Mormon men are acculturated into and prepared for a lifetime of service in the Church’s administrative and pastoral ranks. They are invested with a sense of reverence for hierarchy and taught that overt ambition is unseemly, eloquence untrustworthy, and open criticism of Church leadership unaccep…