Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Religion”
In stark contrast to the terracidal One Percenters, Pope Francis recognizes a looming climate catastrophe and millions of premature deaths from carbon burning pollutants, demands massive decarbonisation and conversion to renewables starting without delay in the next few years, rejects Carbon Trading as a dishonest ploy, advocates a fully borne Carbon Price (Carbon Tax) on polluters, proposes boycotts of polluters, …
As an unprecedented shift in public opinion brought about the legalization of gay marriage, a vigorous counter-current has been intensifying under the banner of “religious freedom”—an incredibly slippery term. Perhaps the most radical definition of such freedom comes out of the relatively obscure tradition of Christian Reconstructionism, the subject of a new book by religious studies scholar Julie Ingersoll, Building God’s …
A recent report has documented the collusion of the American Psychological Association (A.P.A.) with the Department of Defense (D.O.D.) in the torture of apprehended suspects, which aided the George W. Bush administration’s so-called “global war on terrorism.” The A.P.A.’s leadership cozied up to the Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency, and compromised the organization’s ethical standards to help legitimize torture and …
For decades, conservative Christians who oppose LGBT equality have singled out the federal government or secular atheists as their preferred enemy in public settings, blasting both groups for supposedly attacking “traditional marriage” or infringing on their religious liberty. Yet in the months surrounding the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision to legalize same-sex marriage across the country, right-wing Christians have become …
Don’t expect your social worker to ask you about your religious beliefs. New research by a Baylor University professor shows that licensed clinical social workers (LCSWs), who account for the largest number of clinically trained helping professionals, believe that discussions about their clients’ religion and spirituality can often lead to improved health and mental health, but practitioners are not integrating …
Pope Francis this week embarked on a seven-day “homecoming” tour of Latin America on his unstoppable quest to defend the planet and the poor.The continent—the most unequal region in the world, and the Argentine pontiff’s home turf—will likely provide fertile ground for more of his legendary sermons on poverty and inequality. After addressing a crowd of a million in Guayaquil, …
Christopher Obal used to be a Christian. He grew up in Queens, New York, and when he was 5 years old, his parents left Catholicism for a very different form of Christianity. While they didn’t claim a specific denomination, he said the churches they went to would probably be described as Pentecostal, evangelical and charismatic. “We attended churches where people …
I am an evangelical Christian, which means that I openly share the “good news” of the saving grace of Jesus Christ, and I have personally accepted that saving grace for my sins. As a trained Southern Baptist minister and a political scientist, I am bothered by many politicians and preachers who proclaim what God intends for me, or us, to …
Pope Francis’ revolutionary encyclical addresses not just climate change but the banking crisis. Interestingly, the solution to that crisis may have been modeled in the Middle Ages by Franciscan monks following the Saint from whom the Pope took his name. Pope Francis has been called “the revolutionary Pope.” Before he became Pope Francis, he was a Jesuit Cardinal in Argentina …
Seven African-American churches have burned down in the past week and at least four of these southern Black churches were victims of deliberate arson, and possibly six were. This news is being reported tentatively and in the passive mood. The churches burned or were burned. But that arson directed at an African-American church in the South after the Roof murders is likely the …
