The Great Dechurching finds that religious abuse and more general moral corruption in churches have driven people away. This is, of course, an indictment of the failures of many leaders who did not address abuse in their church. But Davis and Graham also find that a much larger share of those who have left church have done so for more banal reasons. The book suggests that the defining problem driving out most people who leave is … just how American life works in the 21st century. (Meador, The Atlantic)
Read MoreRather than offering a blind affirmation of feminism or a critique of patriarchy, the movie explores how we use ideology to bypass the messier work of growing as humans. The gender wars are not the plot so much as the setting. They shape the world in which Barbie and Ken pursue maturity. (Anderson, Christianity Today)
Read MoreLosing faith in God seems to be accompanied by disbelief in the devil, according to a new Gallup report that found that more than half of Americans (58%) said they believe he exists, down from two-thirds (68%) in 2001. About the same percentage (59%) said they believe in hell, down from 71% two decades ago. (Smietana, Religion News Service)
Read MoreAs the G.O.P. activist base tries to pull state lawmakers further to the right in curbing access to abortion, moderates worry that the hard-line stance has already handed electoral wins to Democrats and could have dire consequences in 2024 (Ulloa, The New York Times)
Read MoreThe issue for Mr. Cohen was that pursing a death sentence, rather than taking a plea, would mean a trial and an excruciating revival of the trauma that his fellow congregants had been struggling to overcome. Weeks later, the Justice Department announced it would seek the death penalty, and the trial that has unfolded in a federal courthouse over the past three months has been even more harrowing than he anticipated. (Robertson, The New York Times)
Read MoreJust as the reduction of art to political propaganda leads to bad art, the aestheticization of politics leads to bad, irresponsible politics. That’s because aesthetics and politics are not the same thing. They are not totally unrelated, obviously, but they are also and even primarily different. (Kotsko, The Atlantic)
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