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‘It’s a Gay Problem,’ and Other Myths From the Catholic Church’s Sexual Abuse Crisis

By Joelle Casteix

…ual identity onto male victims against their will. We don’t know the sheer number of female victims of child sexual assault in the Catholic Church. But women are not victims of gay priests. So what does this make the women? Are they not victims at all? Such explanations leave little room for female victims who are then more likely to stay silent and minimize their experiences. Now let’s talk about the male victims. Want the easiest way to silence…

Did North Carolinians Vote Against their Own Beliefs?

By Peter Montgomery

The most dispiriting number to come out of North Carolina today was the huge margin of victory for a constitutional amendment that, as Candace has noted, will not only forbid same-sex couples from getting married, but will strip couples of any legal protections that might have been offered through domestic partnerships or civil unions. The broad wording of the amendment is more evidence that anti-gay advocates are lying when they say they’re only…

How Religion Shapes (or Doesn’t) Our Views on Public Issues

By Daniel Schultz

…dy late last week looking how religious beliefs influence perceptions on a number of different issues. A quick-and-dirty look at the results would tell you that religion doesn’t change much, with a few notable exceptions. For example, this surprising statistic: “60% of those who oppose gay marriage say religion is the most important influence on their views.” One wonders where the other 40% comes from. Likewise, social issues come in dead last on…

Like Azusa Street Baptized into Bureaucracy: Mexico’s Flourishing LLDM Church Loses its Apostle

By Michael Schulson

…lves as charismatic or Pentecostal Christians (38%).” Pinning down precise numbers for LLDM is almost impossible. The church claims to have more than three million members abroad, and 1.5 million in Mexico, which would make it the country’s largest non-Catholic religious institution. The 2010 Mexican census reported only around 200,000 members, but that number may well be low (the Mormon church in Mexico has argued that the religious count was ina…

The Story Behind the Catholic Church’s Stunning Reversal on Contraception

By Patricia Miller

…limited to procreation; that it was acceptable to limit family size for a number of reasons; and that it was licit to use the naturally occurring sterile period to do so. Enter Catholic physician John Rock. By designing a contraceptive that used hormones already present in a woman’s body to mimic the natural infertility of a pregnant woman, he hoped the Vatican would find a theological basis to approve the method. In 1958, when the Pill was alrea…

Fasting and Faithy Friends of Convenience

By Sarah Posner

…d the 2008 election; as I’ve argued before, he gained support across the a number of demographic groups, and it’s difficult to make the case that Obama won because he finally shed the Democrats’ (imagined) hostility to religion. If you’re a religious person whose faith compels you to favor government programs to support the less economically blessed among us, pulling the lever for McCain-Palin probably wasn’t in the cards. To add insult to injury…

New Doc Strives for Christian Unity—But What if Unity is the Problem?

By Noah Berlatsky

…participants through various exercises to identify areas of conflict, and helps the pastors work through their differences, respectfully and with love. So far so good. It quickly becomes clear, however, that there’s a major obstacle to the work of reconciliation—LGBT acceptance. Gulker himself finds this rift especially painful. His children are both queer, and he clearly wants to support them and love them. But he also feels a commitment to Chri…

Grassroots Faith: The Lessons of The Social Gospel

By Christopher H. Evans

…conomic interests of the time. This engagement led the movement to raise a number of questions about its mission. For example, was the social gospel’s primary objective to cast a wide ideological net to create a broad coalition of secular and religious leaders, or was it to identify itself with specific economic and political policies? Common historical wisdom holds that the social gospel broke apart at the end of World War I, a victim of both a n…

Don’t Call It “Prayer Shaming”: Our Moral Failure Exposed

By Willie Dwayne Francois

…d Regional Center in San Bernardino, CA. In the aftermath of the attack, a number of Republican presidential candidates and elected officials issued tweets that, many have argued ad nauseum, demonstrated a commitment to public piety instead of public policy as a response to the massacre. In a rare moment, news and social media outlets in the U.S. became a forum for a surprising debate about spiritual disciplines—the meaning and import of prayer. L…

Trump is a Nightmare, Sure, But Can He Actually Do Anything?

By Sunnivie Brydum

…olina’s House Bill 2, Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and any number of ill-fated attempts to block the forward march of marriage equality. But my professional pedigree also breeds skepticism. And although it’s long been clear that the current administration is hell-bent on turning back the clock on basic civil rights for anyone who’s not a straight white evangelical Christian man, I often wonder whether the near-constant panic that c…