ReligionDispatches.org

Unable to get an abortion during a tour of duty in Iraq, a soldier is left with no option but to do it herself—a humiliating but not uncommon dilemma. Women in the military are forced to obtain a leave to get the care they need; but if they’re honest about why, they put their military career in jeopardy. If they’re not, they put their military career in jeopardy.

A new report documents the trend of evangelicals like Rick Warren exporting sexuality issues to Africa, whose clergy, in turn, support the minority antigay view in mainline denominations, weakening them. The author of the report speaks with RD at length about what he found. 

Already distrustful of outside experts, be they members of the education system or leaders of traditional denominations, Quiverfull followers are increasingly eschewing the medical establishment, opting to leave childbirth to God. The recent death of a newborn, however, exposes a growing rift between the most zealous opponents of intervention and those open to some assistance.

The United States is the only nation save Somalia that’s failed to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Armed with a doomsday ten-point plan including the end of spankings and the government preventing parents from bringing kids to church, the force behind the movement to prevent its ratification isn’t just a bunch of strict parents.

A growing movement among conservative Christians exhorts women to give up the foolish notion of independence and subordinate themselves to their husbands. In this excerpt from Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement, Kathryn Joyce connects the dots between cinnamon buns and submission.

It’s not just another weird religion story about families with eighteen kids. The Christian Patriarchy movement represents a growing backlash against women’s rights within religious communities.

In order to attract a different demographic of supporters, the anti-abortion movement has adopted the theory that reproductive freedom is actually a plot to rid America of its black and brown citizens.

Although Rick Warren’s Saddleback church teaches women that physical abuse is not grounds for divorce, there is a growing literature for evangelical women—by their peers—that shows women how to get out of an abusive marriage, while remaining in the church.

Six thousand evangelical women gather to support biblical womanhood, and hear from theological leaders about the great influence wielded by “a woman on her knees.”

Like Bush in 2000 Sarah Palin is delivering a clear message to conservative evangelicals, who get her call for women to view their highest calling in service to male leadership: willing helpmeets to their husbands', fathers' and pastors' authority...

Dissident UCC pastor apologizes to Catholic Church for his co-religionists' role in gay-friendly, women's ordination...

In heavily Catholic Poland the media fixates on two women who make radically different decisions for their pregnancies. But where's the one who chooses?

Journalists should look more to the example of the Times, which recognizes the loaded arguments of dedicated culture warriors like the creators of Demographic Winter...

A growing theology of male headship and female submissiveness argues that men and women are equal under God, but have different leadership responsibilities as laid out by Scripture...

In the wake of James Dobson’s attacks on Obama’s Christianity, liberal evangelical Jim Wallis comes to the candidate’s aid. Is Wallis’ subsequent plea for a new Democratic position on abortion strategically timed?

By slipping into religious language, and evoking “conscience clause” exemptions, it’s becoming clear that this underground movement is readying itself for the mainstream.

With its new Reform Divorce site, a Men’s Rights Activist group intends to lobby for two new radically conservative divorce provisions.

Fears erupt over the extinction of the white, Christian West.