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Distant Churches and the Isolated Poor: Lessons from Katrina, Ten Years Later

By R. Drew Smith

…y prefiguring the strategic role envisioned within oft-noted endtimes scenarios), it will necessitate a willingness on the part of churches to be present, engaged, and steadfast in contexts where the poor have been left to struggle. Historian Randy Sparks recounts a range of ways New Orleans’ clergy and congregations mobilized on behalf of New Orleans residents during and immediately after Hurricane Katrina—including the several Catholic priests w…

No ‘Christian Compassion’ in Tony Perkins’ Response to Anti-Gay Bullying, Suicides

By Andrew Marin

…and carefully-selected scripture has formed a new and improved culture warrior. At the end of the day Mr. Perkins is doing exactly what he complains the LGBT community is doing to his worldview and the justification that to act in such ways based on ‘the other’ acting in those same ways is not acceptable. It’s also a shame the Washington Post gave voice to someone trying to win a battle and tear down bridges, instead of building those bridges for…

The Fourth of July Is Not America’s Birthday

By Peter Laarman

…“holy ground.” Looking back at the American Revolution during that same period, Adams recalled that “if Parliament could tax us, they could establish the Church of England with all of its creeds, articles, tests, ceremonies, and titles, and prevent all other churches as conventicles and schism shops.” In other words, Adams and many more like him viewed the American Revolution as but a new chapter in an ongoing war not just with monarchy but with…

The Catholic Apocalypse Cometh

By Patricia Miller

…re was the usual riff that Obamacare was “socialized medicine,” a stunning number of the comments groused about the birth control mandate. There’s significant evidence from earlier Pew Foundation polling that the Catholic bishops’ opposition to the contraceptive mandate and the subsequent war on “religious liberty” they ginned up was a major factor in alienating white Catholics from the Democratic Party. The number of white Catholics who said the…

The Catholic-Evangelical (Non-)Coalition

By Patricia Miller

…of trends, 40% of Catholics supported same-sex marriage in 2001 with that number increasing to nearly 60% by 2014. By contrast, only 13% of Evangelicals favored same-sex marriage in 2001 and just 23% approve of it today. Writing in The Atlantic, PRRI’s Robert Jones gets at the truth behind these numbers: “there is more support for official Roman Catholic Church positions among white evangelical Protestants than among Catholics.” But, as he notes,…

Post-Election, “Is The Black Church Dead?” Redux

By Anthea Butler

…ssioned “preacher voice” was not enough to draw black voters out in record numbers as they did in 2008, even though a poll in the New York Times showed his favorables to be extremely high in the African-American community, while he is losing traction with other groups who voted for him in 2008. Issues in the community surrounding foreclosures and unemployment are likely to continue. If the black church writ large is to have any stake in the 2012 e…

How to Make Nones and Lose Money: Study Shows Cost of Catholic Sex Abuse Scandals

By Kaya Oakes

…al, leaving the American church with a massive money problem and shrinking numbers of parishioners on the eve of Pope Francis’ arrival. A recent study by Nicholas Bottan and Ricardo Perez-Trugila in the Journal of Public Economics revealed that, unsurprisingly, “a scandal causes a persistent decline in the local Catholic affiliation and church attendance.” “Some Catholics join other religious denominations during the first three years after a scan…

New Report: Angels & Aliens in Texas Schools

By Mark A. Chancey

…them. That’s what severed the relationship. Academic Quality A surprising number of courses asked little more of students than to memorize Bible verses or learn basic details of biblical stories so that they could fill in the blanks on tests. Some made very questionable choices about the use of classroom time, such as the course that spent two days watching “the historic documentary Ancient Aliens,” which presents “a new interpretation of angelic…

The World is (Always) About to End, No Zombies Required

By Kelly J. Murphy

…in the spring of 2014, when zombie courses had long been on the books at a number of institutions across the United States, in literature courses and sociology classes and beyond. Scholars like Kim Paffenroth and Kelly Baker, among others, had already firmly established the relevance and importance of studying zombies and other monsters within the field of religious studies more broadly. Yet between the excellent work of CMU’s media team and the s…

Single, But Married To Jesus

By Anthea Butler

…other men, whether desirable as a husband or not, stood in the way of the number one relationship. One person I interviewed even had a name for it: “being loosed” from your husband to do the Lord’s work. “Being loosed” could happen because the husband left because the wife was at church too much, they divorced, or the husband died. Others were in horrible marriages, often with physical and emotional abuse involved. Some never married. Yet the chu…