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Atheists of Color Transcend Opposition to Religion and White Atheist Privilege in Working for Social Justice

By Sikivu Hutchinson

…nd whites has increased, straining an already frayed social welfare safety net, people of color are seeking faith-based assistance in greater numbers. In many respects, Trumpian right wing religious attacks on the Johnson amendment, public education, abortion rights, reproductive justice and LGBTQI rights have re-energized secular activism. Yet Black secularists in poor and working class African American communities are especially disdainful of li…

More Popular Than The Pope

By Kate Childs Graham

…estimated that while 1-in-3 Americans were raised Catholic, only 1-in-4 still consider themselves Catholic—meaning that nearly 10% of Americans are former Catholics. The Pew Forum described Catholicism as experiencing the greatest net losses of any faith. Finally, it must be asked: why does the Vatican care? Christianity has never been a popularity contest (Jesus definitely was not a prom king). Since when has this countercultural tradition become…

Meddling Bishops Accuse Clinton of Meddling

By Patricia Miller

…No other position—not support of the death penalty, cuts to social safety net programs or enthusiastic military incursions—has caused the bishops to shun candidates. At the same time, many bishops have been happy to sway Catholics toward an increasingly polarized and polarizing Republican Party over the issues of abortion, same-sex marriage and “religious liberty.” In fact, the loudest chorus of boos for Trump last night came when he said Clinton…

Case Against Church-State Separation From Unlikely Source

By Peter Laarman

…of any mention of noted Reformed pastor/theologian (and early 20th-century Netherlands prime minister) Abraham Kuyper, whose ideas and policies regarding “sphere sovereignty” or “pillarization” (verzuiling) exerted a large if little-known influence on certain architects of Bush’s faith-based program. Maybe it’s just my own alertness to all things Netherlandish, but I thought it was passing strange for Daly to overlook such a towering figure as Kuy…

Should The Senate Listen To A Court-Martialed Chaplain on DADT?

By Sarah Posner

…aking over the military); Joseph Farah, editor of the conspiratorial World Net Daily; the American Family Association, whose public policy director Bryan Fischer asserts there is a link between Nazism and homosexuality. I could name more (like Rusty Thomas of Elijah Ministries, who worked with Fischer in Idaho organizing a conference against “sodomites”), but let me just highlight the crowning touch: one of the signatories includes a former Navy c…

To Serve God and Wal-Mart: The Making of Christian Free Enterprise

By Diane Winston

…rt stores. The program’s political aspects were woven into its religious tenets and economic policies, both of which supported Christian free enterprise, traditional values and a gendered workforce. Writes Moreton: “They [Walton Scholars] perceived their own careers and free-market policies generally as a form of public service, on the pattern of the Christian business departments they attended. For its part, Wal-Mart and its suppliers reaped tang…

A Shame-Positive Case for Keeping the Heat on Trump

By Daniel Schultz

…t to gut Social Security, the ACA, and whatever other pieces of the safety net they can get their hands on. This is not difficult. Finally, like Amanda Marcotte, I believe that a long-held goal of at least parts of the conservative movement has been to create cynicism in the media and among voters, which ultimately enables lawlessness with impunity and destroys hope, which in turn depresses turnout, which keeps the GOP in office. Good times, my fr…

What’s Missing From Popular Discussions of Today’s Christian Nationalism?

By Katherine Stewart

…Amalekites, the Ziklag Group is affiliated with United in Purpose, a data, networking, and messaging organization that’s played a substantial role in turning out the conservative Christian vote in past elections. You can get a sense of the Ziklag Group’s true raison d’ê·tre from a glance at its “membership/attendee criteria,” which appeared on the invitation. Attendance, I learned, was limited to those who are “committed to Christ,” are “Humble in…

LDS Church Brings Religious Pressure to Zoning Fight

By Joanna Brooks

…ournal recently described as the exceptional “insular[ity]” of his campaign and Romney’s own refusal to accept unscripted questions from the press corps. Add to it the ever-louder Obama campaign drumbeat over Romney’s offshore bank accounts, and the net effect is a characterization of Romney (and with him, Mormonism) that draws on old-time Mormon stereotypes of insularity, secrecy, and top-down authoritarianism. It would be wonderful if these ster…

Is the Rise of “Nones” Actually the Decline of Catholics?

By Patricia Miller

…s, which saw a 4.5-point loss, while white evangelical denominations saw a net drop of only 2.2 points, largely because they have both a lower rate of disaffiliation and a fairly robust rate of new adherents. Meanwhile, the faith of no faith saw a nearly 16 percentage point increase. According to PPRI’s Director of Research, Daniel Cox, 36% of all those who left their childhood religion were Catholic. This means that Catholics are punching above t…