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What’s in a Name? Religious Nones and the American Religious Landscape

By Richard Flory

…publicly proclaim their disbelief. These reactions to the increase in the number of people classified as “religious Nones” represent an assumption based on a market approach of religion and an understanding of religion as a binary reality. Just like any other business, success in the religious marketplace is the goal, and it is measured by the number of people who identify with your particular brand of religion (or irreligion as the case may be)….

Did Jackie Speier Shatter “Common Ground”?

By Sarah Posner

…ervices, including, yes, safe and legal abortion. The only statement Third Way could muster on last week’s House vote on Title X was that it was “divisive.” The Third Way press release didn’t mention Planned Parenthood, or its role in doing the daily work of Third Way’s once-vaunted “abortion reduction” strategy. The common grounders also refused to acknowledge that women make moral choices when they decide whether to continue or terminate a pregn…

Fear, Nostalgia and Power Drove Evangelicals to Trump: Interview with Evangelical Scholar John Fea

By Eric C. Miller

…that all evangelicals are comfortable with this, but many of them are. One way to look at this is to observe that evangelicals have always prioritized certain social issues over others, and race has never been one of their priorities. Abortion, they would argue, transcends race. People of all races have abortions and “kill babies.” Traditional marriage, similarly, is an institution that transcends race. I think such a view goes back to one of the…

Blessed With a Dark Turn of Mind: Gillian Welch’s Spiritual Strivings

By Paul Harvey

…e rolling tide What did you want it to be? You say it’s him or it’s me The way you made it That’s the way it will be Still, the religious imagery brings hope, for the prophets may be gone, but they’re not forgotten, be they biblical characters, family members, or aspirants to be the next Elvis. From her first single “Orphan Girl,” which expresses the ache from lacking any “ties of kinship” but finds comfort that heaven will provide her with the fa…

Modern Media and the “Exhibition Value” of the Corpse

By Louis A. Ruprecht

…copies of most of the great artistic masterworks. But what happens to the way we look at Art, when our access to it is provided primarily in this way? What happens to the art-work itself in such an age, among such an audience? In short, Benjamin concluded, Art loses the three things that made it Art in the first place. Call them “the three A’s of Art History”: Authenticity, Authority and Aura. A Greek statue of a pagan deity possessed an unmistak…

Hysterical Heretical Hollywood Humanism: The Theology of The Adjustment Bureau

By Jay Michaelson

…ly work. Since the angels possess a written copy of God’s plan, there’s no way to know ex ante whether Norris’ disobedience is All Part Of The (Meta-)Plan or just plain old disobedience. At one crucial moment in the film, Norris looks into his beloved’s eyes and says “this just can’t be wrong.” Certainly, this is an experience I can relate to, as can anyone who’s fallen in love with someone of the “wrong” gender, religion, or ethnic background. It…

Devil’s Bookmark: How Not to Defend God

By Bernard Schweizer

…rfectly intelligible to theists, but it doesn’t necessarily work the other way around. While disbelief can work its way to belief, belief cannot easily work its way to disbelief. In the long run, this imbalance may prove to be fatal to belief. Of course, there is another defense of God, the humanistic defense, which can prevent the apologist’s hole from getting even deeper: God is just a human construct and reflects human flaws as well as human no…

Bless Your Heart! The Religious Right Tries to Be Civil

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…when he told us to love our enemies: We have to understand why he is that way, how he has come to be like that, why he does not see things the way we do. Understanding a person brings us the power to love and accept him. And the moment we love and accept him, he ceases to be our enemy. To ‘love our enemy’ is impossible, because the moment we love him, he is no longer our enemy. Civility alone means nothing. This kind of bigotry with manners will…

I Confess, I’m Ex-Straight

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…signs with slogans like “God is not a bigot;” “My gay son is fine just the way God made him;” “God [hearts] queers;” and “God loves me just the way he made me.” Inside the event, participants like Joe Dallas were busy reinforcing stereotypes about gay people: Dallas named inborn characteristics that he says make one susceptible to homosexuality—sensitivity, creativity, compliance, preference for intellectual pursuits over athletics—and spoke of a…

Liberation Theology is Alive and Well

By Mary E. Hunt

…religion than any Catholic Church officials I can imagine. Such meetings always include exposure to the local reality—lest liberation theology be done in a vacuum. This was no exception. My group visited a family-run recycling project where printer cartridges are collected for reuse and old newspapers are turned into art supply paper by hand. We went to the local garbage dump and met with people who make their living gathering the plastic, glass,…