religion

• 
• SOURCE: Dame
  9/12/2022
  

  What's in Store for American Religion When Faith in God is Waning?

  by J.L. Tomlin and Thomas Lecaque

  Two historians address the recurrent American preoccupation with gauging the nation's religiosity and issuing dire warnings about the disastrous results of a decline in piety. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  8/7/2022
  

  Church-State Separation is Alien to Many Americans' Faith

  by Caleb Gayle

  The "classical" Christian curriculum pushes a historical vision that America was conceived by God as a beacon of righteousness, and that Christian duty is to eliminate secularism and religious pluralism. 

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  8/5/2022
  

  Satanic Panic Has Featured in American Politics Since the Revolution

  by Zara Anishanslin

  Revolutionary patriots used the symbol of the Devil to convey the ideas of corruption and tyranny, and to elevate political disagreements to the plane of good and evil. 

• SOURCE: The Baffler
  8/4/2022
  

  It's Hard to Be God

  by Joshua Craze

  "One might think that becoming a god is a quick route to an easy life. The problem is that gods are beholden to their believers, and worshippers tend to have plans for their deities."

• 
• 8/7/2022
  

  A Writer Reflects on Four Enlightening and Challenging Lunches with the Father of Black Liberation Theology

  by J. Chester Johnson

  The author shared Arkansas roots with the influential theologian and teacher, from opposite sides of the color line. Their exchanges showed the possibilities of reconciliation and the height of the barriers created by racism in Americans' shared history.

• 
• SOURCE: Los Angeles Review of Books
  7/15/2022
  

  Review: David Sehat on the Struggle to Make a Secular America

  by Johann N. Neem

  In "This Earthly Frame," Sehat examines the way that activists in the 20th Century pushed the nation from an implicit privileging of Protestant Christianity toward a posture of "negative secularism" that separated the functions of government from doctrinal belief, and the transience of that victory. 

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Globe
  8/1/2022
  

  The Demise of the Church-State Wall

  by Steven V. Mazie

  A political scientist and court correspondent says that SCOTUS has adopted a radical version of the "free exercise" clause of the First Amendment that makes a mockery of the historic separation of religious and political authority. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Conversation
  7/20/2022
  

  Think You Know the Biblical Position on Abortion? You May Be Surprised

  by Melanie A. Howard

  Although the Bible was written at a time when abortion was practiced, it never directly addresses the issue.

• 
• SOURCE: Slate
  7/4/2022
  

  If "Heathen" Sounds Outdated, Historian Kathryn Gim Lum Says it Still Explains Racism in America

  The concept of heathenism has always served to distinguish Americans as a group deserving of their good fortune and apart from others in need of transformation, either by persuasion or by violence. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  6/29/2022
  

  Haitian Americans Reclaim the Traditions of Vodou from Centuries of Misperception

  Maligned in the aftermath of the Haitian revolution, Vodou has since been blamed for the alleged barbarism of Haitian people and the poverty of the nation. A new generation of practitioners wants to recover the tradition and clear its name. 

• 
• SOURCE: The New Republic
  7/5/2022
  

  SCOTUS's Religious Decisions are Part of War on Public Education

  by Charles McCrary and Leslie Ribovich

  "The court’s conservatives do not oppose secularism so much as they oppose public things. And so, that is what we ought to defend."

• 
• 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. 

• 
• 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."

• 
• 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." 

• 
• 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. 

• 
• 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. 

• 
• 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. 

• 
• 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.

• 
• 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. 

• 
• 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."