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Huckabee in the Holy Land: A Christian Zionist Campaign

By Shalom Goldman

…948, played a significant part in US support for Israel. In the period from 1948 to the mid ’70s, when both the United States and Israel were led by governments with secular democratic agendas, the ‘Cyrus idea’ was present, if somewhat muted. The confluence of the George W. Bush presidency and a rightward shift in the Israeli government meant that visions of the Third Temple were no longer thought of as metaphorical. And although supporters of the…

What the Ferguson Protests Mean for Religious Progressive Activism

By Shannon Craigo-Snell

…the religious grounding of progressive social action has faltered since the 1960s. In 1965, the Hart-Celler Act changed the rules concerning immigration. This legislation has altered the demographics of the United States and contributed to a more religiously diverse population. Then 1976, Christian televangelist Jerry Falwell organized “I Love America” rallies, a precursor to the founding of the Moral Majority in 1979. The Christian right declared…

Using the “A” Word: Israel and Apartheid

By Shalom Goldman

…e author uncovered is this gem from the files of the LA Times: “A nineteen-year-old Barack Obama gave his first political speech in February 1981, urging the trustees of Occidental College in Los Angeles to divest from South Africa.” The most newsworthy of the book’s findings is the claim that in March of 1975 the “Israeli defense officials offered to sell South Africa some of the nuclear-capable Jericho missiles in its arsenal.” That specific de…

Rising Influence of New Apostolic Reformation Teachings is Ominous Sign For the US — Especially For LGBTQ Students

By Jonathon Sawyer

…, whose nonprofit recently held its annual fundraiser at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, told a crowd at the NAR-influenced Turning Point USA‘s Educators Summit that “Satan wants your kids” and that children in public schools are under spiritual attack by demonic “wickedness in high places.” These aren’t merely the efforts of some of the more brazen Christian Right warriors. Walters and Newman are diligently working alongside other conservative efforts…

Engle Supports “Principled Stand” of Ugandan Anti-Gay Bill Promoters

By Sarah Posner

…n that does not want it. Reiterating his U.N.-brought-the-homosexual-agenda-to-Uganda theme, Engle added: [B]ecause UNICEF and UN were promoting their agenda in the place and there were cases taking place but there was no law, there was no laws, so there could be no restraint and no punishment for that. Because of that, as I understood it, was one of the reasons they wanted to bring forth this — a bill so that they could bring an answer to that ki…

The Quiet Passing of Fundamentalist Mormon Prophet Lynn A. Thompson Suggests Polygamy Recognition Remains a Distant Hope

By Cristina Rosetti

…temples. Shortly after, the group officially incorporated as the Apostolic United Brethren (AUB). By 1970, the group had communities in Pinesdale, MT, as well as in Bluffdale and Rocky Ridge, UT. When Allred died in 1977, he was succeeded by his brother, Owen Allred, followed by LaMoine Jenson, the man he appointed as his successor and who served as the leader of the community until 2014. Thompson assumed leadership of the group following Jenson’s…

A New Book By Esteemed Sociologist Robert Wuthnow Struggles to Show ‘Why Religion is Good for American Democracy’

By Peter Laarman

…dy’s. To his credit, Wuthnow does take note of the way in which, during the 1980s and 1990s, the focus of traditional Catholic discourse around human dignity was increasingly transferred from concern for the dignity of the poor to concern for the fate of the “unborn.” He also takes note of how the language of victimhood—the endless whining about alleged anti-Christian persecution—became a central feature of Religious Right rhetoric during these de…

Six Overlooked Gems from the Future of World Religions Report

By Timothy King

…of the country’s population of 1.3 billion—including the two sects of state-sanctioned Christian churches and rough estimates of those who belong to non-state-sanctioned or “underground” churches. The truth is—and the Pew researchers admit as much—it’s really difficult to accurately estimate what percentage of China’s population is Christian. Because it accounts for such a large portion of the global population, the assumptions researchers make ab…

On Guns and Religious Liberty, Ben Carson “Not an Authentic Adventist”

By Sarah Posner

…ogy, “your decision not to act [with violence] is where you have power.” Co-founded in 1863 by Ellen and James White and others, amid the religious fervor of mid-nineteenth century America, Adventism grew out of the “Great Disappointment”—when Jesus did not return as prophesied by William Miller, the Baptist preacher, on October 22, 1844. In the wake of the Great Disappointment, Ellen White began having dreams and visions, which led early Adventis…

Robert George’s Bogus Comparison of Herman Cain to Martha Coakley

By Sarah Posner

…s freedom (and with the spirit, if not the letter, of the Constitution’s no-religious-tests clause). That George, considered a leading intellectual framer of religious right ideas, and in particular an alliance of evangelicals and Catholics around his framing of reproductive and LGBT rights as inimical to opponents’ “religious liberty” (as enunciated in the Manhattan Declaration) would take on Cain is significant. Significant not so much because t…