Controversial Ugandan pastor doesn't understand why ties were severed.
The Anti-Gay Highway: New Report Details Mutually Beneficial Relationship Between US Evangelicals and African Antigay Clergy
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.
But megachurch pastor says he severed ties with Ugandan ally in 2007.
An experiment in right-wing Christian social thought, Uganda is poised to pass anti-gay legislation. Will the US Senate leverage its weight in opposition?
Purpose Driven Atheism: Secular Maharishis Seeking True Believers
Do Richard Dawkins, Bill Maher, and other true believers really offer a different path, or are their methods and manner merely a mirror image of the fundamentalism they so despise? We are spiritual animals and must learn to live with the complexities and paradoxes of religion—and of the natural world as well.
UPDATED: Warren is... Heterogeneous on Gay Marriage; In Hot Water for Equivocation
Last week on Larry King, "America's Pastor" downplayed his opposition to gay marriage. That was not always the case.
RDBook: Selling the Good News
Who put the mega in megachurch? Two new books, one on star evangelicals and one that focuses on African-American televangelists, tell the story—and explain the remarkable influence of celebrity preachers in the religious marketplace.
Conservative Black Preacher Leads Crusade Against Hate Crimes Legislation
Bishop Harry Jackson, the African American head of the High Impact Leadership Coalition, has raised his profile by joining with top-shelf Religious Right groups in opposing gay rights and the inclusion of gays in hate crimes legislation.
Obama and the Unbelievers: The Future of Secularism
The presidential inauguration showed that an enforceable wall of separation between church and state simply does not exist in America, at least at the level of expression in the public square. What is the future of secularism in our religious democracy?
Is Rick Warren a Fascist?
It's easy to demonize Rick Warren for his Nazi modeling comments—and he has taken some abominable stances—but the culture of blind assent is the real culprit.
Warren's prayer began with all of us, narrowed itself to the Judeo-Christian monotheist, then more narrowly still on the Christian, then more narrowly still on that faith as experienced by Rick Warren himself. A stunning rhetorical achievement.
Biblical Battered Wife Syndrome: Christian Women and Domestic Violence
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.
The door is not just open to Muslim Americans; we are not sitting in the living room; there is a room for us in the house now.
While calling for all Americans to unite and work together, Warren used his “aggressively Christian” prayer to perpetuate and deepen the religious divide in our country.
What can the strange juxtaposition of Warren and Robinson teach us about the current state of the religion-and-culture wars?
Rick Warren Gives Pre-Inauguration Sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church
Controversial mega-pastor Rick Warren gave a little-noticed sermon at King’s home church in Atlanta on Monday. In it he seemed to dance around the controversy, invoking King’s unpopularity seemingly in reference to his.
As the Obama team rounds up unlikely bedfellows for the inaugural ceremonies it seems to have forgotten something: we are not all Christian.
Amway, Religious Right Pyramid Scheme, Returns to the Motherland
“Emerald”-level member uncovered fraud and deception before being kicked out; Charles Colson and “Redemption”; Americans United’s Top Ten Church-State stories; and more.
The Most Popular Stories of 2008
The numbers are in and you, the reader, have chosen your favorite RD stories of the year; from Rick Warren to AIPAC, Sarah Palin, Creationism 2.0 and the fabled “death” of the religious right.
Left, Behind on Obama’s Warren Strategy
Expecting the not-yet-commander-in-chief to attend to each of my parochial concerns is a little, well, precious.
The Sexual Threat to Fundamentalism
Why have homosexuality and gender-bending displaced Jews and anti-Semitism as the bogeymen of fundamentalists across the globe?
Doth the inaugural pastor protest too much? (With pages on lesbians and gays “scrubbed” from Saddleback Church Web site)
O(Pinn)ion: Defending Obama’s Choice
I reject Rick Warren’s theological orientation and vigorously critique the death-dealing theologies of those like him. But my disagreement (and yours) is not the point.
Rick Warren's Purpose-Driven Libido
If Warren is correct to conflate promiscuity with homosexuality how does he explain the gay community's desire for marriage equality?
Commentators maintain that the selection of Rick Warren was a shrewd political calculation. But what of the moral center?