Christianity

Juan Cole is interviewed below by Professor Adnan Husain, Queens University (co-editor of A Faithful Sea: The Religious Cultures of the Mediterranean, 1200-1700) on themes of peace and warmth toward Christians in the Qur’an. The event was sponsored by the Muslim Societies Global Perspectives initiative at Queens University. My remarks are drawn in large part […]

Cults

Fundamentalist Pastor and Trumpie John Hagee, who sued over Pandemic Shutdown, Contracts COVID-19

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Last summer, the mayor of San Antonio, Ron Nirenberg, ordered all schools closed until September 7 as a mitigation measure against the spread of the coronavirus. Texas had a major outbreak this summer, one of the country’s worst hot spots. Texas has had over 800,000 cases and 16,444 deaths. Fundamentalist […]

Cults

What is Amy Coney Barrett’s charismatic Catholicism?

The Conversation

By Mathew Schmalz | – Amy Coney Barrett reportedly will be Donald Trump’s nominee to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court. Questions have been raised about her alleged association with the “People of Praise,” a nondenominational Christian charismatic community, seen by some as being a potential influence on her legal thinking, particularly […]

Christianity

As Humanity faces Sea-Level Rise, Revisit the Noah Story in the Bible and Qur’an

Emir-Stein Center

Jack Miles | Emir-Stein Center “Cultures are often revealed through the stories they hand down through generations. Every civilization has foundational ones. Among the stories many cultures tell, we find tales of a great flood, but the story of Noah’s flood captured the imagination of three great traditions: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim. The Jewish and […]

Christians

Demons of the deep state: how evangelicals and conspiracy theories combine in Trump’s America

The Conversation

By S Jonathon O’Donnell | – Are demons active forces in American life and politics? That is what a large number of evangelicals in the US believe and are increasingly vocal about. Since the 1980s, growing numbers of evangelicals have given the fight against demons a key role in their spirituality and their politics. Known […]

Christianity

Why in the World would Evangelical Christians deny the Human-Caused Climate Emergency?

The Conversation

By Adrian Bardon | – U.S. Christians, especially evangelical Christians, identify as environmentalists at very low rates compared to the general population. According to a Pew Research Center poll from May 2020, while 62% of religiously unaffiliated U.S. adults agree that the Earth is warming primarily due to human action, only 35% of U.S. Protestants […]

Christianity

Why does Donald Trump appeal to so many Evangelical Christians?

The Conversation

By Emma Long | – “He’s following the radical left agenda, take away your guns, destroy your second amendment, no religion, no anything, hurt the Bible, hurt God … He’s against God,” President Donald Trump told supporters during a recent trip to Ohio. Trump was speaking about Joe Biden, the Democrat challenger for the White […]

Christianity

White too Long? Why is Racism so much stronger among White Christians than among Unchurched Whites?

James A. Haught

Racism is much stronger among America’s white Christians than among churchless whites – and it always has been. That’s the message of a new book by social analyst Robert Jones, head of the Public Religion Research Institute. White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity contends that white churches didn’t merely adapt […]

Christianity

Declining Religious Right could go down with Trump

James A. Haught

Charleston, W.V. (Special to Informed Comment) – Barely three months from now, the 2020 election may reveal whether America’s white evangelical “religious right” finally is losing political power. So far, early polls imply that obnoxious President Trump, the darling of born-again whites, may suffer a historic defeat. (Although I’m unreligious, I pray ardently for that […]