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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…

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

By Andrew Aghapour and Michael Schulson

…ked on the language so that it had—not playfulness, but just, “this is the best new evidence. This is the best new story we got going now.” Here’s the critique: that, “the universe is expanding” is a very loose way of talking about love or personal development. It’s a superficial connection between things that are substantially different. If the metaphor breaks down, [at least] I took a valiant effort at connecting a few things. Malcolm Gladwell,…

The Next Big Religion Issue: Immigration

By Daniel Schultz

…ording to a new poll from Public Religion Research Institute, a surprising number of religious Americans are behind immigration reform. With that broad support and a progressive base that seems reenergized by the success of health care reform, this really might be the best shot for new immigration policy in a long while. I suspect that the question will turn on whether opponents can appeal to a certain xenophobic, authoritarian streak in voters. T…

Mike Johnson isn’t Just Your Average Christian Right Avatar — He’s Influenced by Fringe Movements Unfamiliar to Most Political Analysts

By Annika Brockschmidt

…rt Julie Ingersoll, is a revealing answer: “This term by itself can mean a number of things. For example most Christians would say they look to the wisdom of the Bible to understand their identity and purpose in relationship to God. But combined with Johnson’s statement that if anyone wants to know what he thinks about any issue they should look at the Bible suggests to me he means that in a much more literal sense. I see him as one who believes t…

Turkish Police Move Against Activists Who Defied Pride Ban; And More in Global LGBT Recap

By Peter Montgomery

…s and we cannot be open in public anymore.” The proposed bill emboldened a number of radical nationalist movements and, according to activists at Labrys, a gay activism group in Kyrgyzstan, led to a near 300 percent increase in attacks against the community. Activists fear things will get worse once a Russian-style anti-gay “propaganda” bill gets its final reading in parliament and becomes law; a restrictive definition of marriage was placed into…

The Incredible Shrinking Catholic Church

By Paul Gorrell

…o take their spiritual business elsewhere. We have seen an increase in the number of American politicians who are asked to remove themselves from communion lines and, recently, priests have even denied parishioners communion if they vote for a political candidate who favors abortion rights. This exclusion from the sacrament is essentially a form of excommunication. Dogma Over Diplomacy Ironically, at a time when many earnest believers are being tu…

What do the January 6 Commission, Covid Deaths and Gun Massacres All Have in Common? God’s Chosen

By John Stoehr

…like it implicitly—in that they have decided, as a political party over a number of years, that only Republicans can rule legitimately. The country is politically polarized, because the Republicans now insist on a polarized worldview in which the Republicans are good, because they are good and the Democrats are bad, because they are bad. Calls to “do the right thing,” like establishing a truth commission, cannot therefore be seen as merely “doing…

A collage of a Bible, Valdimir Putin, and the Kremlin and an outline of Russia

Putin’s ‘Year of the Family’ Declaration Blends Russian Nationalism with the Far-Right Rhetoric of the Global Pro-Family Movement

By Irina Smolevskaya

…percent of the total Russian population in 2021—according to the official numbers. When read against the dwindling numbers of some of Russia’s largest ethnic minority groups, such as Tatars, Bashkirs, Chuvash, Avars, Armenians, and Ukrainians, this data suggests that many Russian citizens do not feel safe enough to disclose their ethnic identity in the current political climate defined by the Russification of the nation. See Robert Coalson, “Russ…

Review: Is the Religious Right Dying?

By Laura R. Olson

…e past quarter century has been its laser-like focus on a relatively small number of interrelated issues. The religious left would need to define its agenda priorities clearly and precisely in order to earn concrete policy victories. Nor am I convinced that we should write an obituary for the religious right. As Dionne notes in Souled Out, “The end of the religious right does not signal a decline in evangelical Christianity” (p. 4). Far from it: e…

The Quixotic Task of Debunking David Barton

By Paul Harvey

…futations of Barton’s bogus empiricism. I’ve considered these questions a number of times recently in observing historians struggling to deal with the popularity of figures such as David Barton, who bowdlerize history but get the kind of attention few actual historians receive for their work. To What Effect? These debates go back a long way. When I was in college at a Baptist denominational school in Oklahoma, the biology professor, a man about…