religion

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• SOURCE: PsyPost
  3/30/2022
  

  Ignorance of American Political History Correlates to Support for Christian Nationalism

  Survey research suggests that respondents who support the idea of a Christian America are not ignorant or unintelligent, but motivated to actively affirm statements about government and history that align with their theological precepts. 

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• SOURCE: Current
  3/11/2022
  

  John Fea Interviews David Sehat on American Secularism

  "American secularism was the result of a layered religious conflict in the 20th century that played out in the courts and that left the U.S. Supreme Court with no option but the adoption of a secular order as a condition of social peace and political equality."

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• SOURCE: Religion Dispatches
  3/10/2022
  

  Trump's "Sh*thole Countries" Remark is Nothing American Churches Haven't Said for Generations

  by Kathryn Gin Lum

  American missionaries in the nineteenth century prefigured the former president's comments by forming a worldview of a "blessed us" and a "backward them." 

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• SOURCE: Black Perspectives
  2/22/2022
  

  The Black Social Gospel, Radical Politics and Internationalism

  by William Hogue

  The rise of the Black social Gospel after emancipation was a key development that prefigured the later Civil Rights movement, but it also developed a more radical stream of criticism of American militarism. 

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• 2/13/2022
  

  What Major Religious Traditions Say about a Democratic World Federation

  by David C. Oughton

  Valentine's Day has become a secular American celebration of romantic love, but it can be an occasion to consider religious traditions of love involving the pursuit of peace, including through international federation. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  1/26/2022
  

  Capitol Attack Pushed Christian Nationalism to Center of Shifting Far-Right Movement

  Christian nationalism, particularly the sense that America's white, Christian identity is threatened, is a force uniting disparate strains of the far right and a potential bridge between extremists and millions of American Evangelicals, say scholars Kelly J. Baker and Anthea Butler. 

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  1/25/2022
  

  The Antivax Right is Bringing Human Sacrifice to America

  Past debates about closing schools and businesses to control the pandemic at least could claim to be about balancing costs and benefits. The campaign to refuse vaccination will kill people for no purpose whatsoever.

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• 1/16/2022
  

  What Happens When the "End Times" are Now?

  by Martyn Whittock

  Evangelical Christianity's enthusiasm for viewing current events as markers of the End Times is nothing new, but those tempted to mockery should nevertheless recognize how politically potent those ideas can be. 

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• SOURCE: The Baffler
  1/12/2022
  

  Online Christian Martyrs

  by Peter Manseau

  "Imagine if all the energy, resources, and marketing that have been used to inject ideas of martyrdom into issues of public health and safety had instead gone toward making real change."

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• SOURCE: Salon
  1/7/2022
  

  Secularism: The Essential, Fatally Weak Guardrail of Democracy

  by Jacques Berlinerblau

  The framers of the US Constitiution failed to build in the protections against religious belief overpowering the rights of others or the security of the state that Locke and other political theorists thought were urgently necessary. This oversight might imperil democracy.

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  12/6/2021
  

  For Black Americans, Spaces of Sanctuary have been a Matter of Survival

  by Alicia K. Jackson

  "In reality, much of African American history is the story of Americans creating their own sense of sanctuary in a land that often seems antithetical to their presence and their needs."

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• SOURCE: Religion Dispatches
  12/1/2021
  

  Is the Anti-Pope Francis Rad-Trad Catholic Movement Headed to QAnon Territory?

  by Joshua P. Hevert and Thomas Lecaque

  "While the Middle Ages may feel very distant, the amping up of apocalyptic rhetoric in a struggle over the papacy and the direction of the church is very current."

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• SOURCE: Religion News Services
  11/29/2021
  

  Taylor Swift Takes a Familiar Path to Hell and Back

  by Peter Manseau

  "In its own way, “All Too Well” tells a story not unlike myths of yore. It dabbles not in mythology, per se, but in the so-called “monomyth,” popularized as “The Hero’s Journey” by the folklorist Joseph Campbell almost 75 years ago."

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  10/14/2021
  

  The Sleeper SCOTUS Case that Threatens Church-State Separation

  by Kimberly Wehle

  "If the plaintiffs win, states and municipalities could be required to use taxpayer dollars to supplement strands of private religious education that many Americans would find deeply offensive, including schools that exclude non-Christian or LGBTQ students, families, and teachers."

• 
• 10/3/2021
  

  How Evangelical Conversion Narratives Feed the "Free Choice" Rhetoric at Your School Board Meeting

  by Rebecca L. Davis

  Evangelical Christianity grew in America by emphasizing the power of individual conversion as a "choice for Christ." This frame explains not only the prominence of Evangelicals among anti-mask and anti-vaccine protesters, but also the frequent rhetorical connections they make between COVID policy and LGBTQ tolerance. 

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• SOURCE: The New Republic
  9/27/2021
  

  The Legal Standard Encouraging Religious Exemptions to Vaccination is Baffling

  by Charles McCrary

  American courts have established sincerity of individual belief as the standard for recognizing a religious accommodation or exemption. Even though no major religions ban vaccination, this standard could still sustain widespread refusal of coronavirus vaccines. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/19/2021
  

  John Shelby Spong, 90, Liberalizing Episcopal Leader

  Spong's advocacy for liberalized theology, acceptance of women and LGBTQ clergy, and reconciliation with modernity encouraged some Episcopal congregations to liberalize and others to embrace conservative traditionalism, foreshadowing the tensions in mainline protestantism.

• 
• SOURCE: CNN
  9/17/2021
  

  The Complex Politics of Vaccine Resistance

  by Nicole Hemmer

  Despite the fact that no major religion forbids vaccination, vaccine resisters often leverage religious exemptions to gain moral authority for what are often political or conspiracy-based views. Public health advocates need to recognize that exemption claims are a tool, not a belief.

• 
• SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
  9/17/2021
  

  Policing Religious Exemptions to Vaccines

  A lawsuit against Creighton University, a Jesuit institution, would expand the justification for religious exemptions to vaccination from explicit declarations of opposition by a religious body to any impulse of individual conscience. 

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• SOURCE: The Revealer
  9/9/2021
  

  Religious Militancy Overseas and Its Messages at Home

  "Recognizing jihad as a diverse and historically evolving practice makes it possible to cast aside the biggest misconception in the West, namely that it is an instantiation of medieval barbarism left over from less enlightened times."