Amway, Religious Right Pyramid Scheme, Returns to the Motherland
“Emerald”-level member uncovered fraud and deception before being kicked out; Charles Colson and “Redemption”; Americans United’s Top Ten Church-State stories; and more.
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Travolta Tragedy: Don’t Blame L. Ron Hubbard
John Travolta’s 16-year-old son is found dead and our celebrity culture is quick to blame the religion of his parents, Scientology. So much harder to face the fact of death, to look beyond the spectacle of someone else’s tragedy and toward our own frailty and error.
Read MoreDear President Bush
As you approach the end of your time in the White House, I want to make sure I say “Thank you.” Thank you for transforming my faith and my politics.
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Covering Religion in The New Year: The Atheist Bus And More
Rolling with the atheists in the UK; rich men, camels, and needle’s eyes; Jews, Christians, and Gaza; the Obamas on Sunday mornings…all this and more on the religion writer’s beat as the year begins.
Read MoreSex and the Seminary: Wake Up and Smell the Incense
A new study reveals that religious professionals are not being trained to deal with the most basic aspects of the sexual dimension of congregants’ lives. Not acceptable when it comes to issues like AIDS/HIV, workplace ethics, domestic violence, and LGBTQ needs.
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Religion in Tension on World AIDS Day
From “God Hates Fags” to Desmond Tutu’s calls for compassion, religion has been deeply intertwined with the struggle for AIDS justice. Fully two decades after activists first challenged church authority on HIV/AIDS religion’s report card is mixed.
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Please Bless His Eyes: Praying At The Hospital
There’s a surprising quality to the prayers left at the feet of a statue of Jesus at the Johns Hopkins University Hospital; they’re not simple petitions or requests for an all-powerful God to fix their problems—they are snippets of ongoing conversations.
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Is Religion a Game?
Playing Gods, a new board game making headlines, is more than just a playful riff on religion. If we want to understand religions, we have to understand their game-like qualities, and that religion might, at the heart of it all, be a game. Which does not make it trivial.
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Battling for the Soul of the Democratic Party
Since the 2004 defeat of John Kerry, a handful of religious Inside-the-Beltway Democrats—called the religious left by some—have seen their influence rise dramatically. But how progressive is their “broader agenda?” And what of religious left leaders who include reproductive justice and LGBT civil rights on their list?
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Rick Warren’s Biblical Blowback
The proper role of government is to punish evildoers, Pastor Rick Warren tells Sean Hannity. If the Rev’s read is to be believed, the United States is in deep trouble.
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