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“It’s been a rough month.”

Generally, sociologists do not use the word “cult.” Those that do, such as William Bainbridge and Rodney Stark, use it in a highly specialized way to indicate groups that are innovative (unlike churches) but open to everyone (unlike sects). Religion scholars who study “new religious movements” (or NRMs) are the first to admit that “cult,” in its modern usage, has always been a theological term used by Protestants to label religions they do not like.

Group that calls for “revolution” is seeking to have personhood amendment on state ballot.

With an economy in freefall, the Greek PM is broaching the subject of making the Church pay its share.

The Personhood Amendment, MS26, is a deceptively simple sentence: “The term ‘person’ or ‘persons’ shall include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof.” There’s not a word about IVF, or about contraception, or about ectopic pregnancy treatment or miscarriages. Anyone who considers himself or herself pro-life will almost certainly reflexively agree with it. The implications, though, are drastic. Because there’s no established legal standard for what rights are conveyed by the term “personhood,” it can be applied as broadly as the state legislature and judicial system will support. Everyone, supporters and dissenters alike, agrees that it will prohibit elective abortion, the morning-after pill, and discarding frozen embryos. What else, though, might be prohibited under the same logic?

A one-act tragicomedy starring Planned Parenthood and Florida congressman Cliff Stearns…

What happens when evangelicals bring theological debates into presidential politics.

A bloggingheads debate.

Bearing witness is a sacred act.

An interview with Patrick Mason, the nation’s leading scholarly expert on anti-Mormonism.