Christian Right

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.

The results of a new Pew survey indicate that going to church increases the likelihood that people will support torture, especially if they are white evangelical Protestants. This is not good news.

Obama’s Notre Dame speech seemed to reinforce the “common ground” school, which adopts Christian Right frames in the name of compromise. But a careful look at the numbers reveals that Democrats have more to gain by articulating a strong moral message—whatever the content—than by watering down the message in an effort to appease conservative Christians.

Even after the “revelation” that letting unregulated moneymen run the country isn’t a good idea, the neoliberals at the Heritage Foundation are still churning out the message; like the latest book by “theologian” Jay W. Richards, Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism is the Solution And Not the Problem.

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.

Lila Rose, a 20-year-old UCLA student, is taking on Planned Parenthood with a phony story, video equipment, and support from a host of Christian Right media outlets and organizations.

A minister’s son plays Bernie Madoff and swindles his father’s congregation out of millions. Is it helpful to see events like this in terms of God’s plan?

Revealing why citing “chapter and verse” once had no meaning, why 16th century Catholics capitalized “Word” but not “God,” and why the King James Bible is anti-Puritan, Lori Anne Ferrell’s new book reminds us that everything is historical: the Christian religion, the Christian people, the Christian book.

How did Christianity become so commercial? Is religious punk rock an oxymoron? The author of a new book on suburban evangelicalism and Christian heavy metal shows how Christian youth culture has been commodified and sold to secular audiences.

Drawing on sources as diverse as feminist theology, biblical criticism and Midrash, renowned poet Alicia Suskin Ostriker’s latest book of essays seeks to rescue the Bible from the clutches of narrow conservatism.