Presidential Pep Talks and the Religion of Fear: How did an Uncontroversial Speech Become a National Controversy?
The conservatives who were frightened by Obama’s speech to schoolchildren weren’t afraid he’d say something radical—quite the contrary—they were afraid that the president would sound moderate and human. The real question, why did they buy the fear? is impossible to answer without considering religion.
Texas Board of Education Wants to Change History
Texas is the second largest purchaser of textbooks in the country. If conservative Christians on the Texas Board of Ed panel prevail in their wish to leave Ann Hutchinson (trouble maker!), Cesar Chavez, and Thurgood Marshall out of the social studies curriculum, all US schools could be affected.
Religion vs. Girls’ Education
Cultural and religious forces are often arrayed against girls when it comes to the right to education. Religion, in particular—whether it’s Islamic legal law or an evangelical Christian aversion to evolution—is often evoked to bar girls from school.
Religious-Educator-in-Chief
If "we teach who we are," Obama's Cairo speech taught us that we are capable of appreciating difference and making peace.
Undercover at Falwell’s Liberty University, Finding Common Ground
Brown sophomore Kevin Roose, an Ivy-league heathen, infiltrated the nation’s holiest university and emerged a changed man—not committed to conservative Christianity, but to finding a new language for reconciliation.
Court Rules: Feminism is Not a Religion
When an Ivy League women’s studies department is sued for promoting the idea that women are divine princesses and men are minions of Satan, we are reminded that the act of defining religion is important work.
Evolution Challenged in “Textbook” Case: As Goes Texas, So Goes the Nation
Opening the door to “junk science,” members of the Texas Board of Education inserted the coded language of creationism. With the second largest textbook budget in the nation, publishers are paying close attention.
No Zombie Jesus: The Vatican and Roger Haight
Roger Haight, a Jesuit priest and scholar, is teaching his last semester at Union Theological seminary this spring. In this interview, one of his students tells the story of Haight’s censure by the church, and explains why it matters.
Darwin in Rome: Burden of Diversity, Mystery of Time
Two current exhibits in Rome hint at the disturbing subtext of Darwin’s theories and the root of religious opposition to them.
ENDA Times: LGBT Groups, Echoing the Civil Rights Era, Approach Churches
The Human Rights Campaign, while lobbying for the passage of a comprehensive federal nondiscrimination bill, is hoping to “reclaim the moral ground” from the religious right by targeting churches with its new curriculum.
Catholic educators in Boston put a cross in every classroom, just in case anyone's wondering who's running the show.
Denying Darwin: Another Peculiar American Institution
In this dispatch from a British conference on science and the public interest, author Lauri Lebo revisits American attitudes toward Darwin from the perspective of our neighbors across the pond.
Evolution Sunday: Pastors Celebrate Darwin
A professor of biology gets clergy on board in the fight against those who would teach biblical creationism in America’s schools, showing that science does not always lead to atheism. Sorry, Dawkins.
Evolution Sunday: Pastors Celebrate Darwin
A professor of biology gets clergy on board in the fight against those who would teach biblical creationism in America’s schools, showing that science does not always lead to atheism. Sorry, Dawkins.
Post-Racial? Yes and No.
In the journey toward white comprehension of the legacy of racism, consciousness comes slowly. But now is the time for the hard work, the time for what Dr. King called “creative action.”
Creationism Makes Its Mark
When their son Zachary came home from science class with a cross burned on his forearm It was not the religion that bothered his parents, but the injury to their child. They sued, and brought science v. creationism back into the courts for another round.
Doubt v. Predator: A Vatican II Parable
The film adaptation of this Pulitzer Prize-winning play, set in the midst of Vatican II, pits the age-old male hierarchy against the secrecy of the recent molestation scandals. And the winner is...
Teaching Love: Soulforce Takes it to the Quad
Soulforce, an organization dedicated to changing the hearts of those who discriminate against LGBT people based on religious belief, takes the message to conservative colleges and learns, firsthand, the eleventh commandment: Thou Shalt Not Trespass on Campus.
Keeping God Out of Science Class in an Obama Administration
A generation after the infamous Scopes Trial, a biology teacher, Susan Epperson, went to court and won the right to teach evolution theory. Even the election of a new, more science-friendly administration, however, does not ensure that the Bible will no longer be used as a science textbook.
Keeping God Out of Science Class in an Obama Administration
A generation after the infamous Scopes Trial, a biology teacher, Susan Epperson, went to court and won the right to teach evolution theory. Even the election of a new, more science-friendly administration, however, does not ensure that the Bible will no longer be used as a science textbook.
Tinkering with Creation: Intelligent Design 2.0
Amid new rumors of man and dinosaur coexistence, the Texas Board of Education will be debating the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution and deciding whether to force religion into science class.
The United States has exported its contradictory and confusing HIV prevention strategy to Africa: Abstain, Be Faithful, Condoms (ABC). Herewith a modest proposal to reconcile Christianity, identity, and HIV prevention...
Reverend Annett noticed that in spite of the large Native American population on Vancouver Island, none of them attended his church...
Can the jewel of black academia, the nation’s largest liberal arts college created to produce “exceptional black men,” continue to thrive while it fosters a deeply homophobic atmosphere?
Wendy Gonaver’s lessons on the American Constitution may soon include her own story: the refusal to sign a loyalty oath designed to root out communists in public jobs whose effect is to weed out religious believers, particularly Quakers and Jehovah’s Witnesses.