The child rape scandal at Penn State raises inevitable comparisons with the Catholic Church. Does religion make these kinds of abuses worse? by Great ChristinaAlternet I can’t be the only person who heard about the Penn State child rape scandal and thought, “Holy crap — it’s just like the Catholic Church.” The abuse of power by a trusted authority figure; the coverup by people in authority; the unwillingness of witnesses to speak out; the grotesque, morally bankrupt defenses of a beloved... Read more

by By Dave SchechterCNN“And may God bless the United States of America” is a popular closing line in speeches by presidents and presidential hopefuls. Does a higher power, if one exists, “shed his grace on thee,” as the lyrics of “America the Beautiful” proclaim?And if so, does this make the United States of America the greatest country in the world?Christianity Today crunched data from a Pew Research Center poll that asked more than 1,500 Americans for their views of the... Read more

The Religious Communication Association selected Dr. Andre E. Johnson’s article “The Prophetic Persona of James Cone and the Rhetorical Theology of Black Theology,” for its Religious Communication Article Award. According to the announcement letter, the selection committee felt that Dr. Johnson’s work “represented a superior level of scholarship on the interplay of rhetorical and theological discourse.” Dr. Johnson received the award at the Association’s convention in New Orleans. Dr. Johnson currently serves as the Dr. James L. Netters Assistant Professor of Rhetoric &... Read more

People and groups of faith inspired by the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations in New York City are organizing events in NYC’s “Liberty Plaza” and around the country. We’ve compiled a list of some of these upcoming protests. We would love to add other cities! Please leave all faith-related happenings in the comments, or tweet us @HuffPostRelig so we can add to the list. In many of the Occupy cities, there are “protest chaplains.” In New York they identify themselves with... Read more

by Amy-Jill Levine and Douglas KnightHuffington Post The claims are familiar: humanity could not control nature, did not understand conception or birth, and feared death, and so we invented a God that brought order to chaos, purpose to life and comfort in death. Next, we developed religion to placate the God we invented to assuage our fears of what we could not understand or control. Then, we wrote the Bible to sanction the religion that placated the God that we... Read more

by Jaweed KaleemHuffington Post With heated nation-wide arguments in recent years over issues ranging from same-sex marriage to abortion rights, it’s no secret that religious organizations play a significant role in influencing the nation’s policies.Now, a new study shows just how big and expansive the “religious lobby” has become.According to a study released Monday by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, religious lobbying and religion-related advocacy organizations have grown fivefold, from less than 40 in 1970... Read more

Just when you think that the presidential primaries can’t get any dirtier, the politicians come up with something new. The latest is religious bigotry by proxy, or bootleg bigotry, as I like to call it. With Texas governor Rick Perry polling lower than Michelle Bachmann and Ron Paul, his advisors wanted to posture him as the anti-Romney—that is, as the Republican candidate who, if somewhat unpolished and an uneven speaker, is still the candidate most unlike the voluble but hated... Read more

President Obama is “hostile” and “disdainful” of Christianity.That’s according to Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. Perkins told Dr. James Dobson, president of Family Talk, in a broadcast last week that he believes Obama has used his position as a bully pulpit that has “created an atmosphere that is hostile toward Christianity.”Perkins’ comments came after the two, along with Alan Sears of the Alliance Defense Fund, discussed a recent incident in which the Air Force Academy apologized for... Read more

Standing before a crowd of reporters at the Friar’s Club in New York, Sharon Bialek told her story.  With her lawyer Gloria Allred at her side, Bialek painted a picture of an unwanted sexual encounter in a parked car in Washington DC: what she was wearing – pleated skirt, suit jacket; a pleasurable dinner and cocktails; and to her surprise, an upgrade to a suite at her hotel, courtesy of her host for the evening, Herman Cain.Bialek shockingly revealed that Cain “reached... Read more

Religion and politics are taboo conversations that rarely mix comfortably, but religion must be brought up when discussing the next president.The nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute discovered in a survey that two-thirds of Americans prefer their leaders to have strong religious beliefs.There are common morals, and then there are morals instilled by religious beliefs. When a person is brought up learning to do good for others without expecting anything back, that person is much more apt to make a positive... Read more