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Episcopal Conference Lives Up to Episcopal Jokes

By Julie Ingersoll

…the height of the battling, that it was all not such a big deal, that the number of dissidents was actually quite small and that he thought his church would be better off once they were gone. Indeed, according to Wikipedia there are over 7,000 Episcopal congregations in the US with over 2 million members, though the significance of that number is unclear since, as the priest in the church where I was baptized once teased me: “when you’re baptiz…

Was Ghana Anti-Gay Scare Just Politics?

By Warren Throckmorton

…ed “to get rid of these people in the society.” Some observers believe the number of sexual minorities may have been inflated in order to whip up opposition to homosexuality which could advance the standing of conservative politicians. Graham Knight, a British blogger living in Ghana, recently wrote that the claim of 8,000 sexual minorities has little support in fact. Knight concluded, in a blog post titled Did Ghana register 8000 homosexuals? The…

Let’s Get Lost: Mapping Religion in the 21st Century

By Spencer Dew

…map (as compiled by Salatomatic, an Islamic guide to mosques) compiled the number of mosques per state, while the second, using U.S. Department of State data, charts the number of refugees arriving in each state (from October 2014-July 2015), and the third offers “a compilation of Islamic terror activity by state” pairing the names of organizations with U.S. cities (for instance, Boca Raton, Florida, is flagged for “Al Qaeda”). The source for this…

Oklahoma Bill Would Violate Basic Freedoms, Rewrite the Ten Commandments

By Andrew L. Seidel

…the many differences between various Jewish and Christian sects in how to number and interpret these different sets of commandments. All of this I explain in my book, The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American. Seemingly small differences are magnified because Christianity has historically claimed to possess ultimate truth, so any deviation from an absolute truth is significant. Minor variations are further magnified by, as James…

YOU Are Spiritual But Not Religious: The Secret Spiritual History of the Choose Your Own Adventure Books

By Daniel Silliman

…at happens in this story!” The first book sold 8,000 copies, an impressive number for an independent press. The series was then bought up by Bantam Books and re-branded Choose Your Own Adventure in 1980. An initial marketing push gave 100,000 copies of The Cave of Time to librarians, who loved the concept and the effect it had of getting kids to actually sit down and read. Selling for $2.95 apiece, more than 50 titles were published over the next…

“As Orthodox As They Come”: A Backstage Conversation With Rob Bell

By Andrew Aghapour and Michael Schulson

…ound in space, and there are levers and pulleys and buttons. I think for a number of people, atheism is simply the rejection of somebody sitting on a cloud somewhere with a beard who might intervene from time to time. I think quantum physics, the little I know, it just intuitively puts…sometimes a poet puts language on what you intuitively feel and sometimes a scientist goes, “Hey, it’s all kind of relationships of energy.” Oh, yes! I agree that q…

Global LGBT Recap: Catholic Polling, Religious Violence, International Advocacy

By Peter Montgomery

…logger Blabbeando reminds us that during Brewster’s nomination process, “a number of religious leaders the Dominican Republic criticized the nomination of an openly gay man for the diplomatic post. Leading the charge was Cardinal Nicolás de Jesús López Rodríguez who called the then-nominee a ‘faggot’ on national television.” Last month the Cardinal urged church goers to show respect for the new ambassador, but some people aren’t willing to let g…

The Abortion Debate, Texas Style

By Dhawn Martin

…e were informed that over 1600 individuals had registered to testify. That number was quickly growing, even with testimony set to end at midnight. It was gonna be a long day, and over a thousand Texans would not get to voice their opinion. After the main elements of the bill were highlighted by its author, the games commenced. Democratic lawmakers deployed stall tactics and asked probing questions; Republicans attempted to push through the proceed…

American Sin: Why Pope Francis’ Mercy is Not Our Mercy

By Kaya Oakes

…cy is not something we discuss very often. Our rates of incarceration, the number of states utilizing the death penalty, our obsessive clinging to the Second Amendment along with its deadly consequences, ICE raids on immigrant families fleeing even worse violence in their home countries, drone strikes, the environmental violence of fracking, deforestation and coal mining, and the daily threats faced by women, LGBTQ people and people of color are a…

The Demographic that Should Keep Rove Awake at Night

By Katherine Stewart

…continues to erode—from 21 percent in 2007 to 19 percent in 2012—while the number of the religiously unaffiliated is rising—from 16 percent to 20 percent over the same period. In other words, “nones” and evangelicals are equivalent in numbers. One explanation for this change in America’s religious complexion is that white Christians are aging: 72 percent of voters over 65 are white Christians, compared to only 26 percent of voters under 30. Pew al…