religion 
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SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
1/18/2021
Warnock’s Election Reminds Us that Black Churches are Vital to Democratic Success
by Robert Greene II
Democratic politicians must recognize the historical role of Black churches not just as gathering places where visiting politicians may speak to voters, but as organizing spaces where political agendas are formed. Dems who wish to emulate Rev. Warnock's victory need to embrace Black churches in a deep way.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
12/14/2020
Facing a First Amendment Fight, a Small Minnesota Town Allows a White Supremacist Church
A small Minnesota town has approved the use of a church building to house a neopaganist group strongly associated with white supremacy, arguing that they would be exposed to an expensive legal action if they denied the permit. This is part of a long pattern of similar First Amendment cases.
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SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
12/9/2020
The Persistence Of Creationism Shows Losing Could Make Trumpism More Extreme
by Adam Laats
Modern sophisticates were confident that the Scopes Trial marked the defeat and discrediting of creationism. Those alarmed by the denialism of Trump supporters about the election results should remember that the rumors of fundamentalism's demise were greatly exaggerated.
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SOURCE: Southern Spaces
11/20/2020
When Sunday Comes: Gospel Music in the Soul and Hip-Hop Eras
by Claudrena N. Harold
Professor Harold's new book looks at gospel music in the late 20th century and reappraises it as a period of artistic innovation, not of misguided pursuit of commercial or crossover success.
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SOURCE: Discover
11/29/2020
The Complicated History of Religion and Archaeology
Modern archaeology has largely succeeded in instituting professionalization and historical rigor to the study of sites of theological significance, but the discipline has a long and continuing historical entanglement with efforts to find proof of religious doctrines.
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SOURCE: The Conversation
11/12/2020
60 Years after JFK, Biden as Second Catholic President Offers a Refresh in Church’s Political Role
by Steven P. Millies
Joseph Biden's election represents a chance to develop a political agenda informed by broad Catholic teaching, not only opposition to abortion.
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SOURCE: The Conversation
10/19/2020
Religious Identity And Supreme Court Justices – A Brief History
by Nomi Stolzenberg
In recent decades, religious influence on the Court has been shaped by conservatives of different faiths, construed as part of a mythical Judeo-Christian tradition, coalescing around a common agenda defined less by affiliation with a religious denomination than with opposition to liberalism and secularism.
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10/18/2020
Does the "Divided Loyalty" Question Still Dog Catholic Politicians?
by D.G. Hart
Joe Biden will likely do what JFK and Al Smith did, namely, fit his faith into the norms of American politics.
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SOURCE: NPR
9/24/2020
The Evangelical Vote (audio)
NPR's "Throughline" examines the growth of evangelical christianity as a political movement and its influence over the nomination of a Supreme Court justice and the election.
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SOURCE: Mother Jones
9/24/2020
It’s Not Anti-Catholic to Ask Amy Coney Barrett About Her Religious Group “People of Praise”
People of Praise evolved in response to the reforms of Vatican II and the spiritual energy of evangelical Protestantism; former adherents say that the control the group exerts over members makes questions about Amy Comey Barrett's membership legitimate.
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SOURCE: The Way of Improvement Leads Home
9/22/2020
Amy Coney Barrett and the “Kingdom of God”
by John Fea
Liberal critics have seized on a quote from the potential Supreme Court Nominee's graduation speech to Notre Dame law students as evidence of a theocratic mindset. A historian of American religion warns the metaphor of the "kingdom of god" is widely used in political rhetoric.
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SOURCE: The New Republic
9/18/2020
What Trump Taught America About the Bible
by Peter Manseau
The Bible is a powerful talisman for the majority of Americans, but Trump’s successful use of it these past five years suggests that, to many, it is a book whose content matters less than the one holding it; an expression of tribal identity as much as creed.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
8/13/2020
We Can Tear Down False Idols of History. Thomas Jefferson Did it to Jesus Christ
by Peter Manseau
"Considering “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth” anew today, we might begin by asking whether Jefferson’s willingness to challenge convention gives the lie to a justification of his many failings as unavoidable for a man of his time."
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8/16/2020
Examining Christian End Times Rhetoric in the Time of COVID
by Andrew Joseph Pegoda
Historical amnesia and everyday privilege are what make it seem to some Christians that end prophecies are actively in progress.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
8/3/2020
How White Supremacy Infected Christianity and the Republican Party
Columnist Jennifer Rubin discusses the findings of Robert P. Jones of the Public Religion Research Institute, presented in his new book, that elements of evangelical theology are strongly supportive of hierarchy and inequality.
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SOURCE: Going Medieval
7/30/2020
On Sex with Demons
by Eleanor Janega
"The idea of having sex with demons or the devil... has a long and proud history. A concern about sleep sex demons traces at least as far back as Mesopotamian myth where we see the hero Gilgamesh’s father recorded on the Sumerian King List as Lilu, a demon who targets sleeping women, in 2400 BC."
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SOURCE: Patheos
7/23/2020
Os Guinness, Eric Metaxas, and Their Dangerous Myths of American History
by Abram Van Engen
"Only when we begin to see the multiplicity and complexity of history can we begin to understand how God moves in it and through it, and how we, in the present, can and should respond—righting wrongs and attempting to shine a light in dark places," writes Abram Van Engen.
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SOURCE: University of South Carolina
7/22/2020
The Long History of How Jesus Came to Resemble a White European
No one knows exactly what Jesus looked like, and there are no known images of him from his lifetime. Art history professor Anna Smartwood House writes about the complicated history of the images of Christ and how historically they have served many purposes.
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SOURCE: NPR
7/1/2020
White Supremacist Ideas Have Historical Roots In U.S. Christianity
At an earlier point in American history, some Christian theologians went so far as to argue that the enslavement of human beings was justifiable from a biblical point of view.
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5/31/2020
Trump and the Puritans
by Martyn Whittock
No one would ever call Donald Trump a Puritan. But the 17th century religious movement is a foundation of Trump's America.
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