Religion Dispatches

RD Response to Fox Crit of White Supremacy in Yoga Engages in Victim Blaming

Rumya S. Putcha

Where is the line between keeping scholars honest and undercutting them, especially when such scholarship is meant to shine a light on systemic inequality?

With James Cone’s Death Comes the Death of Black Theology

Anthony B. Pinn

While the socio-political, economic, and cultural climate motivating the work has shifted—the fundamental and death-dealing disregard for black life has remained unaltered.

Queer Nuns: Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are “Serious Parody,” Forcing Us to Redefine Nuns

Melissa Wilcox

Many think they’re mocking nuns, but parody or camp and mockery are often very different things. In fact, one of the easiest ways to move a Sister to tears is to tell her that nuns from other orders (Roman Catholic, Buddhist, etc.) recognize and respect her work.

Update #2: No Safe Place For Truthtellers: A Larger Frame For the House Chaplain Brouhaha

Peter Laarman

Pundits that play the story as merely another “unforced error” on Ryan’s part miss this crucial point about the containable rage of the exposed despoilers toward someone who is, by all accounts, a mild-mannered and well-regarded figure.

“Project Blitz” Seeks to Do for Christian Nationalism What ALEC Does for Big Business

Frederick Clarkson

Launched initially in 2015, Project Blitz brings something new and dramatic to the Christian Right as it continues to mature as a political movement—especially in light of its electoral advances in state governments over the past decade.

Historian John Ragosta Discusses the Context and Inspiration for “Religious Freedom” in the U.S.

Frederick Clarkson

Historian John Ragosta details some of the strikingly similar issues over the proper place of religion and religious expression in a secular nation compromised of mostly religious individuals.

Betrayed at the Polls, Evangelicals of Color at a Crossroads

Deborah Jian Lee

White evangelicals captured the election, but they may have lost their fellow believers, the very people who could keep their institutions from the attrition that has many Christians genuinely worried for the future.

The Religious Origins of Fake News and ‘Alternative Facts’

Christopher Douglas

It wasn’t Christianity that helped make Republican voters more likely to be duped, but susceptibility to fake news has its particular historical origin in Christian fundamentalism.