Tag: religion

The music emanating from a storefront church in Brooklyn was a death knell: Once my grandmother heard it, her childhood was over.

Children Of QAnon believers are desperately trying to deradicalize their parents.

Naz Riahi recalls her vibrant childhood in a suburb of Tehran, and considers how the harsh realities imposed by the still new Islamic Republic seeped into her family’s life.

After leaving fundamentalism, Eve Ettinger grapples with the loaded theological heritage of evangelical personal finance teachings.

“I wasn’t unified in my being. I wasn’t able to bring my whole self to the table,” says Cameron Dezen Hammon about her life as a worship leader for an evangelical megachurch.

After being diagnosed with bipolar disorder, Anna Gazmarian grapples with her evangelical upbringing, and finds solace in screamo music.

Cameron Dezen Hammon reflects on her frustrations as a Christian music minister for the terminally ill, unable to heal a cancer patient she cared for, and struggling to be compassionate at her belligerent Jewish father’s bedside.

Three psycho-spiritual “events” of the 1970s — involving Philip K. Dick, Robert Anton Wilson, and Terence and Dennis McKenna — had a strange synchronicity.

Katy Hershberger recalls the way her decade at Christian summer camp both shaped and condemned her views of faith and girlhood.

As a Jewish New Yorker, Candy Schulman is surprised to find a small town in Andalusia celebrating the coexistence of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish cultures, despite the area’s dark racist history.

Joy Notoma grapples with saying goodbye to friends before a move, the complicated grief of shunning, and the way one parting can be a painful reminder of so many others.

If America collapses, some see that as an opportunity to reboot society. They say they have God on their side.

Sarah Watts details how science fiction shaped her family, her religion, and her own self-image.

This month’s books newsletter is about seeing the big picture.

Amber Scorah talks about committing the one unforgiveable sin: believing, then not believing.

Kate Branca considers the body as an instrument of faith.

“The idea seems to be that we all live in the great database in the sky, occasionally summoning aliens with our minds.” Emily Harnett explores Silicon Valley’s appropriation of UFO culture.

Personal assistant? Start-up founder? Professional long-lost sister? No, Southern Baptist pastor.

With Warren Jeffs in jail, Hildale, Utah has an opportunity to become a real town that serves and protects all its residents, no matter their faiths.

Reckoning with a religious upbringing means confronting religion’s role in oppressing women and people of color.

Witchcraft: it’s spirituality, it’s a philosophy, it’s a lot more than flowy black dresses and cursing your exes.

“I was not a fallen creature in a broken world reliant on grace, but a Marine in a successful army that had all the answers.”

One woman finds insight into her father’s rage in the scientific concept of entropy.

Like many non-religious Jews of my generation, I naively assumed Nazism could never rise — and hurt us — again.

What’s so great about having things spelled out clearly?

The basketball court is a place where young black men feel comfortable mourning death, but are there crucial elements missing from their grieving practices?

Not only will I never get my faith back, but I’m going to keep missing it. I’ll always have that longing — but there’s no going back into the garden.

A roundup of longreads to celebrate Pride Month.

A woman searches for love and belonging inside and outside of the Christian church.

Is it possible to be queer, lefty, and a Latter-Day Saint? After leaving the church, Sarah Scoles sets out to understand liberal Mormons.