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When God and Gender Mix: New Book Examines the Southern Holiness Movement

…ge how they understand their own identity. If academic achievement and the number or type of initials after your name is the most important thing in the world to you, then it will change how you view your own masculinity and femininity. Similarly, if having children matters most to you, then you can only be truly “manly” or “feminine” if you have kids. Is there anything you had to leave out? Historians always want to include every interesting anec…

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Renovating Marriage, One Gay Couple at a Time

…ose marriage equality on religious grounds. For them, I point to a growing number of religious leaders who also understand that gays and lesbians can do a lot to “redefine” marriage in beneficial ways. Rev. Ed Bacon, who leads the 4,000 member All Saints Church in Pasadena, Calif., told Oprah Winfrey this past weekend that marriage would be “enriched” by same-sex couples. I’ve never had a straight couple come to me and say, ‘My marriage is in trou…

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Sacred&Profane: The Living Dead

…oked. There are ghosts and graves in the yards of my neighborhood, and the number of skeletons—reclining on lawn chairs, sprouting up from the ground, beckoning from the shadows—has transformed the suburban landscape into a set for a George Romero film. In addition, and beyond bland suburbia, monsters, ghosts, skeletons, vampires, and other playful dead inhabit stores and sell products, entertain across the television dial, and instill a dreadfull…

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Pop Culture Yogi B. K. S. Iyengar Dead at 95

…n by introducing an invocation to Patanjali at the beginning of each yoga class, though he insisted that while yoga was a part of an ancient South Asian yoga transmission it was not specific to any religious tradition and was universally accessible. In 1975, Iyengar established the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute, named after his wife who had died in 1973. The Institute, which functioned as the center for teacher training, greatly augm…

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Will Iowa’s Abortion Ban Respect Religious Freedom?

Iowa’s 6-week abortion ban went into effect last month, meaning that more than 600,000 women of reproductive age now lack access to legal abortion in the state. While the law claims to offer exceptions for medical emergencies, rape, incest, and fatal fetal anomalies, these exceptions are so vaguely written they’ll be virtually impossible to access. A Planned Parenthood-led lawsuit successfully blocked the law’s implementation since Iowa’s Republi…

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Mormon Rejection of Trump Embarrassing for Evangelicals?

…ghpoint, but rather as members of a heretical and unchristian faith. For a number of reasons, including Mitt Romney’s presidential run in 2012, those impulses have been largely diminished. But evangelical worries about Mormonism remain. That Mormons have so thoroughly repudiated Donald Trump while American evangelicalism wrestles with its complicated relationship with him only elevates evangelical leaders’ concerns about the strength of their fait…

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An Unholy Holy Week: Is the All-Male Rule of the Roman Catholic Church Self-Destructing?

…and procession to find a few confused and pitifully human old men at microphones still trying to send out impressive puffs of smoke. Within 20-40 years, we will have women priests ordained with the blessing of canon law (not outside canon law as at present). This will happen sooner than previously expected because each act of abuse or cover-up weakens the power of the male hierarchy. Their convoluted reasons for why only men can represent Jesus C…

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Americans Say Religion is “Losing Influence”

…n’s decline has less to do with personal religiosity than with events. The last time religious influence was deemed to be in sharp decline was the 1960s. Political protests along with cultural upheavals left many wondering about the future of traditional institutions. But during the Reagan years, and especially following 9/11, the significance of religion—its association with social stability, community cohesion, and traditional values—raised appr…

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Protesters in Washington DC, the day before the January 6 insurrection, wrapped in American flags blow shofars.

Netanyahu’s Genocidal Religious Rhetoric isn’t Just an Appeal to the Israeli Right — He Has Another Constituency in Mind

…w, while 55% of Americans as a whole have a favorable view of Israel, that number jumps to 80% among White evangelicals. And further, among evangelicals who support Israel, up to 50% have suggested End Times prophecies are part of their motivation. There are surely some whose uncritical support of Israel is motivated by End Times prophecies, though there’s significant disagreement on that point. What I would argue instead is that Christian Zionist…

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The American Media’s Longterm Ambivalence About the Papacy

…zines, but today much of the reading public seems more interested in iconoclasm. When the new pope is soon shown within Time’s familiar red frame he will likely appear in full and flattering light, but only briefly. Is it any wonder that the last newsweekly standing would gravitate toward stories of once-unquestioned authority undermined and reduced to a shadow of its former significance? This is, after all, a story it knows quite well.  *This ess…

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