A “Secular Government Caucus” is coming to the Minnesota state legislature, thanks to four lawmakers who want to protect church/state separation and push back against the forces of Christian nationalism. Perhaps even more stunning? This morning’s announcement reveals that 20 of their colleagues will be joining them. “We are troubled by the efforts from some […]
politics
Posted inReligious News
Survey: How authentic are Christian evangelicals? Not very
“American evangelicals, it turns out, have a Jesus problem.” This quote by self-described evangelical Christian Republican David French came in a September 23 post of his newsletter, “The Third Rail” in The Atlantic. Referencing a report released last week on a biannual survey by conservative Christian organizations LifeWay Research and Ligonier Ministries, French notes that the […]
Posted inPolitics
Is Tennessee targeting people without ‘In God We Trust’ license plates?
Do the license plates in Tennessee allow cops to determine which drivers are atheists? That rumor has been floating around for months, and it has some validity to it, but the full story makes the whole situation seem far less conspiratorial. Some background is helpful here. In 2017, Republicans in the state’s legislature passed a […]
Posted inNews, Politics, Racial justice
Florida joins Texas, Arizona in weaponizing migrants by sending them to other states
Don’t get too caught up in recent headlines around Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, where two planes of some 50 migrants, many Venezuelan, showed up suddenly on Wednesday. Yes, this caused great confusion and a scrambling of community resources to provide basic necessities and aid to very confused arrivals who spoke little English. But it’s also nothing […]
Posted inEducation, Religion
Are fundamentalist religious schools retarding America’s future?
After firmly resisting New York state oversight for years, a private fundamentalist Hasidic Jewish academy in Long Island—one of the state’s largest schools—finally in 2019 agreed to give standardized state tests in reading and math to more than 1,000 students. Every single student failed, the New York Times reported in an exhaustive investigative report published […]
Posted inEnvironment, News, Politics
Chile votes ‘No’ in referendum on new green constitution
A referendum held September 4 in Chile, on whether to accept or reject a new constitution developed by a specially created Constituent Assembly, received a resounding “No” from 62 percent of some 12.8 million voters. The new constitution, developed by a representative body of 155 average citizens in the wake of Chile’s massive 2019 protests […]
Posted inCulture, Deep Dive
What makes ‘skeptical’ kids grow up to be God-believing adults?
If kids are the savvy, skeptical creatures that Will Gervais proposes in his recent essay, why do endless hordes of them in each generation turn into conservative American adults who uncritically worship invisible gods with zero objective verification? And what makes these same supposedly mature folks end up uncritically adoring visible but damaged demigods on […]
Posted inPolitics
Ammon Bundy: Lying for Jesus, yet again
Ammon Bundy needs attention again, I suppose. After a frenetic summer of grandstanding outside of a hospital, he continues to campaign for public office in Idaho. To help him win the upcoming governor’s race, he planned a September 10th rally at a park in Boise. However, his election committee lied to the park’s governing board […]
Posted inLGBTQ, LGBTQ News, Politics
Anti-gay WI GOP candidate had ‘many sexual encounters’ with male colleague
Wisconsin Republican Peter Schmidt, who appears to be a lock for a seat in the State Assembly in November’s elections, is downplaying his past same-sex flings in an effort to stay on the good side of conservative Christian voters. Earlier this month, Schmidt won a six-way primary by a mere 63 votes to become the […]
Posted inEducation, Law, Politics
Tucked into the South Carolina budget: A $1,500,000 gift for a Christian school
Tucked into page 443 of the South Carolina 2022-2023 budget is a $1,500,000 taxpayer-funded gift to the Christian Learning Centers of Greenville County. (It’s misspelled in the budget.) The organization’s mission is to “provide biblical instruction to school-aged children.” For the past 25 years, it has also transported public school children to local churches for […]