Departments

;

religion

  • SOURCE: The New Yorker
    7/13/2023

    Josh Hawley Earns F in Early American History

    by John Nichols

    "The origins of the misquote, which has circulated for years in Christian nationalist publications, can be traced to that 1956 article in The Virginian, a segregationist-era publication that Willamette University history professor Seth Cotlar has described as 'virulently antisemitic & white nationalist'.”

  • SOURCE: The Hill
    6/8/2023

    Is Oklahoma's Religious Charter School Good News for Secularists?

    by Jacques Berlinerblau

    Oklahoma recently approved the first publicly-funded religious charter school in the United States. Is it possible that this ambitious move will backfire when schools representing all denominations and faiths demand equal treatment? 

  • SOURCE: Sojourners
    5/1/2023

    When a Leading Evangelist Held a Revival to Thwart Labor

    by Matt Bernico

    The events surrounding the 1886 Haymarket Affair, when a Chicago general strike for the 8 hour day became violent, revealed tensions present in Christianity today: what happens when Christians side with the bosses? 

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    1/30/2023

    The Latest SCOTUS Case to Privilege Religion Over Civil Society

    by Linda Greenhouse

    Historically, the Supreme Court has viewed workplace accommodations for religious workers in terms of protecting minority faiths and relieving undue burdens on employers and coworkers. A pending case brought by a Christian postal worker promises to upend that balance. 

  • SOURCE: Religion Dispatches
    12/12/2022

    Why Can't the US Press Name the Bad Faith in Evangelical Politics?

    by John Stoehr

    Head-scratching accounts of "conflicted" evangelicals voting again and again for manifestly ungodly candidates would vanish if the media consulted (or hired) ex-evangelicals, who would explain the movement seeks power, not piety. 

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    11/17/2022

    Mormon Support for Same-Sex Marriage isn't a Total Surprise

    by Benjamin E. Park

    A historian of the Latter Day Saints explains that the church has become more willing to tolerate general expansions of rights for LGBTQ Americans at the same time as it reserves the right to dictate sexual mores within its own ranks. 

  • 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: 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."

  • 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.