More than half of those surveyed said they felt God would protect them from infection.
By Carlie Porterfield @ Forbes
Category: religion
A New Clinical Study Is Underway To Determine If You Can Pray Coronavirus Away
Other past studies have revealed “no scientifically discernible effects” for intercessory prayer for healing.
By Marla Milling @ Forbes
The Supreme Court seems likely to give religious employers a broad ability to discriminate
It suggests that religious conservatives are likely to prevail in other cases asking the Court to weigh whether civil rights laws apply to people who object to those laws on religious grounds.
By Ian Millhiser @ Vox
Censorship warped how DC and Marvel dealt with Heaven, Hell, and Jesus
In 1954, the Comics Code Authority was created to monitor comics before they were delivered to the public.
By Alan Kistler @ Polygon
Lawsuit accuses Liberty University of ‘profiting’ from the coronavirus pandemic
The class-action lawsuit was filed Monday by “Student A,” who, according to her lawyers, chose to remain anonymous “out of fear of retaliation and harassment.”
By Konstantin Toropin and Daniel Burke @ CNN
Monasticism
Paul Freedman is the Chester D. Tripp Professor of History at Yale University. (45:49)
Is that so?
The other cheek
“I don’t think God wants Christians to just sit back and not protect what they believe in and protect the people they have a fiduciary responsibility to protect.” Liberty University President Jerry Falwell,
By Kate Riga @ Talking Points Memo
Frank gets political
During the 1980s, Frank Schaeffer could make more money off of a single book table after giving a seminar to 15,000 people than he now makes in a year, he claims.
By Micah Danney @ Religion Unplugged
Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns…
The rufous hornero.
‘Evangelicals for Trump’ was an awful display by supposed citizens of the Kingdom of God
I just felt sad.
Opinion by John Fea @ USA Today
An open letter from black church leaders and allies to Christianity Today
…this letter serves as a statement in full support of Christianity Today, but this letter goes one step further to also serve as a rebuke to those pastors and leaders who are so outraged by Christianity Today’s response to the impeachment of President Trump.
The Real War on Christmas
Truly, there is a war being waged against Christmas by large corporate interests that seek to convert every American to their religion – that of Mammon, that of worshipping and willingly allowing themselves to be enslaved by the almighty dollar.
By Dr. Arik Greenberg @ World Religion News
Evangelicalism and Race
Reverend Kelly Brown Douglas talks about her Sojourners Magazine article, “How Evangelicals Became White.”
(31:29)
Why Christianity Today’s call for Trump’s ouster might not matter
We have no doubt that the evangelical operators who long ago cast aside faith and morality in favor of access to power are not going to be jolted out of their religious coma by an editorial.
Opinion by Jennifer Rubin @ The Washington Post
The post-Christian culture wars
The Trump administration’s two most revealing speeches weren’t given by Trump
By Ezra Klein @ Vox
Why is there some kind of religion in all human cultures?
Pascal Boyer, the Henry Luce Professor of Individual and Collective Memory at Washington University in St. Louis, discusses how the organization of the human mind influences culture, specifically how religion is acquired and communicated. (28:26)
Why isn’t the Gospel of Thomas in the Bible?
Religion for breakfast (7:22)
Mohler, prominent Southern Baptist, will be nominated to lead denomination
Campaigns for the presidency of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination are usually tightly scripted, polite affairs in which populist megachurch pastors are typically chosen. But because 2020 is a U.S. presidential election year, there was a desire among leaders of some of the denomination’s agencies and seminaries to avoid an ugly and potentially divisive battle over President Donald Trump.
By Yonat Shimron @ Religion News Service
Are You a Moderate?
Think again.
Opinion by Jamie Aroosi, a senior research fellow at the Hong Kierkegaard Library at St. Olaf College, @ The New York Times
Benjamin Franklin and His Religious Beliefs
Religion and Early Politics
By John Fea
This article originally appeared in Pennsylvania Heritage Magazine
Volume XXXVII, Number 4 – Fall 2011
How Attorney General William Barr weaponizes religious liberty
What was the purpose of the Attorney General’s ill-informed, ill-argued rant? I’d say it’s to justify a new federal aggressiveness in assuring space for religious traditionalists to do their thing, whether that’s discriminating against LGBT people or gaining access to public funds.
By Mark Silk @ Religion News Service
Here’s how much money these megachurches bring in across the US
There are reportedly 1,650 Protestant megachurches (defined as having a sustained weekly average attendance of 2,000 people or more) in the US.
By Ann Schmidt @ Fox Business
State Department website promotes idiosyncratic religious opinion
As Pompeo talked about protecting life, he never mentioned Syria, where Donald Trump cleared the way for Turkey to launch a military offensive.
By Savannah Behrmann @ USA Today
Pompeo’s dog whistle
Jewish Democratic activist call secretary’s address at State Department event “an affront to our separation of church and state.”
By Eric Cortellessa @ The Times of Israel
“I have a religion — but you will call it blasphemy”
New film on Mark Twain highlights his religious doubts
By Kimberly Winston @ Religion News Services via The Salt Lake Tribune
Evangelical Christian leaders are ‘absolutely appalled’
By Peter Weber @ The Week
“And I believe — and I want to say this with great solemnity — the president of the United States is in danger of losing the Mandate of Heaven if he permits this to happen,” presumed spokesperson for God Pat Robertson said.
Rev. Graham’s tour evokes evangelical support for Trump
Impeachment could polish the president’s relationship with a white evangelical base.
By Elana Schor, Associated Press via ABC News
Jesus Among the Philosophers
Ancient Conceptions of Happiness
Luke Timothy Johnson is the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at Chandler School of Theology.
(51:25)
Jerry Falwell Jr. said Tuesday that he is asking the FBI to investigate
In a Christian response to “love your enemies, do good to those that hate you, bless those that curse you, pray for those that mistreat you,” Jerry Falwell Jr. turns the other check and says Liberty University has hired “the meanest lawyer in New York” in response to a Politico article that alleges he “presided over a culture of self-dealing” at the university.
By Sarah Rankin and Alan Suderman @ AP News
a rare intempestivity 