Christianity 
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SOURCE: NPR
5/8/2022
How the Evangelical Movement Embraced the Abortion Issue
Kristin Kobes Du Mez discusses how Evangelical Christians came to drive the abortion debate in the US in the context of a backlash against feminism and a growing infrastructure of conservative voter mobilization.
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SOURCE: Patheos
4/27/2022
What Makes a Conservative Christian College?
by Andrea L. Turpin
What does it mean when a self-identified "Conservative Christian" college determines that it has violated its own mission by teaching Critical Race Theory? Is the violation religious or political in nature?
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SOURCE: The New Republic
3/30/2022
The Lesson from Republicans' Embrace of "Classical Education"
Calls for "transparency" in curriculum are working hand in hand with an agenda to divert public school funding to charter schools using a curriculum steeped in Christian nationalism. But liberals would do well to heed the connection these plans draw between education and citizenship, and parents' desire to connect them more firmly.
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SOURCE: Christianity Today
3/22/2022
Why Have No Evangelical Christians Served on Supreme Court?
Evangelicals are arguably the most politically engaged religious group in America, with strong views on issues before the court. Yet Ketanji Brown Jackson could become the first nondenominational Protestant to sit on the highest court.
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SOURCE: Current
3/11/2022
John Fea Interviews David Sehat on American Secularism
"American secularism was the result of a layered religious conflict in the 20th century that played out in the courts and that left the U.S. Supreme Court with no option but the adoption of a secular order as a condition of social peace and political equality."
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SOURCE: The Conversation
3/11/2022
Why Does St. Brigid Get So Much Less Attention than Patrick?
by Lisa Bitel
"This year on March 17, when you’re wearing the green and singing “Dirty Ol’ Town,” take a moment to whisper thanks to St. Brigid, the compassionate, sensible, native-born patron saint of Ireland, and ask if Ireland’s premier patron saint should be a woman."
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SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
3/5/2022
What Binds Some American Evangelicals to Putin's Regime and War?
by Bethany Moreton
Russia's embrace of both religious nationalism and gender traditionalism makes many American evangelicals feel that Putin is their ally in a war against spiritual degeneracy.
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SOURCE: Religion Dispatches
2/10/2022
Missing from the Conversation on Christian Nationalism? Whiteness
by Peter Laarman
The extreme wing of the Christian right is attracting attention for its rhetoric equating freedom with their own power to determine the course of society. A minister argues that recent works in religious history show that it's a mistake to leave out the significance of white racial identity to that movement.
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SOURCE: Mississippi Free Press
1/26/2022
Christian Dominionism, History, and the War on Abortion in Mississippi
Mississippi's stringent abortion restrictions are the product of a decades-long, cross-denominational project of Christian Dominionism, the view that conservative Christians should control the institutions of society to advance what they consider "Biblical" policies.
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SOURCE: Vanity Fair
1/24/2022
The Rise and Fall of Jerry Falwell Jr. at Liberty U.
The ousted leader speaks to reporter Gabriel Sherman about the scandal and meltdown that ended his leadership of an evangelical empire.
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SOURCE: The Baffler
1/12/2022
Online Christian Martyrs
by Peter Manseau
"Imagine if all the energy, resources, and marketing that have been used to inject ideas of martyrdom into issues of public health and safety had instead gone toward making real change."
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SOURCE: Salon
1/6/2022
How Christian Nationalism Drove Insurrection: A Religious History of Jan. 6
by Kathryn Joyce
Religion scholars Anthea Butler and Peter Manseau offer insight into the convergence of nationalism and religious fervor that contributed to the widespread sense on the right that violence was necessary to thwart the great evil of Biden's election.
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SOURCE: Religion News Services
11/29/2021
Taylor Swift Takes a Familiar Path to Hell and Back
by Peter Manseau
"In its own way, “All Too Well” tells a story not unlike myths of yore. It dabbles not in mythology, per se, but in the so-called “monomyth,” popularized as “The Hero’s Journey” by the folklorist Joseph Campbell almost 75 years ago."
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SOURCE: Los Angeles Review of Books
11/16/2021
A Beautiful Mess: On “The Eyes of Tammy Faye”
by Emily Suzanne Johnson
"The people who made this film seem to care about its subject, but the film does not know itself well enough to be itself and love itself. Tammy Faye’s heart and soul just aren’t in it."
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SOURCE: Georgia Public Broadcasting
11/12/2021
Historian Kristin Kobes-Du Mez: Hawley Latest to Politicize So-Called Threats to Masculinity
"It's never entirely clear how he defines masculinity, even though he's quite certain that masculinity is under attack, and the left is trying to do away with real men."
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SOURCE: New York Times
11/14/2021
Is America Willing to Tell the Truth About its History?
by Tish Harrison Warren
What does the Christian faith require in terms of honesty and acknowledgment about the nation's history?
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SOURCE: TIME
11/3/2021
How Christian Archaeologists Fed Today's Strife in Jerusalem
by Andrew Lawler
The incursions of 19th century Christian archaeologists onto Jerusalem's historic acropolis created a sense of seige on the part of Palestinian Muslims, which is echoed today in ongoing conflict over the city's religious sites.
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SOURCE: Far Out
10/3/2021
The Beatles vs. the KKK
John Lennon's notorious "bigger than Jesus" comment prior to the group's 1966 American tour brought out right-wing protestors and helped push the band to stop touring permanently.
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10/3/2021
How Evangelical Conversion Narratives Feed the "Free Choice" Rhetoric at Your School Board Meeting
by Rebecca L. Davis
Evangelical Christianity grew in America by emphasizing the power of individual conversion as a "choice for Christ." This frame explains not only the prominence of Evangelicals among anti-mask and anti-vaccine protesters, but also the frequent rhetorical connections they make between COVID policy and LGBTQ tolerance.
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SOURCE: New York Times
9/19/2021
John Shelby Spong, 90, Liberalizing Episcopal Leader
Spong's advocacy for liberalized theology, acceptance of women and LGBTQ clergy, and reconciliation with modernity encouraged some Episcopal congregations to liberalize and others to embrace conservative traditionalism, foreshadowing the tensions in mainline protestantism.
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