The Labyrinth of Molestation and Denial
Chuck Rosenthal Because you don’t start having sex with someone at thirteen and just stop at nineteen. You don’t just walk away. You carry it inside and live with it, hide it, go back to it, ignore it, fail to ignore it; you live with shame; you try to normalize what happened.
The Presence of One Man Rule in FLDS Mormonism: Contextualizing an American Religion that Became Synonymous with Abuse
Cristina Rosetti Warren Jeffs did not emerge in a vacuum. Rather, he is part of a larger history of both internal religious struggle and outside persecution that created a landscape where Jeffs succeeded at making rape a matter of doctrine.
Clericalism as a Cultural Pattern: Aiding and Abetting Abuse
Clericalism as a Cultural Pattern: Aiding and Abetting Abuse Michael Horan Clericalism, like racism or sexism, festers within cultures and inside individual imaginations. Clericalism is based on social location in the Catholic church’s cultural system for both worship and governance, a system developed a millennium ago. Theologian Paul Lakeland asserts that all isms at their […]
Manufacturing Consent: Creating Hierarchies in the Guru-Disciple Relationship
Manufacturing Consent: Creating Hierarchies in the Guru-Disciple Relationship Amanda Lucia Sexual abuse happens across the globe and in nearly every environment. Recognizing this, religion scholar Andrea Jain argues that focusing on a specific religious context can be distracting and detrimental to tackling what is a global and ubiquitous problem. She writes, “The appeal to the […]
Introduction: Abuse in Yoga and Beyond: Cultural Logics and Pathways for the Future
Introduction: Abuse in Yoga and Beyond: Cultural Logics and Pathways for the Future Christopher Miller In recent years, abuse scandals have shaken the yoga world once again, overturning previously held conceptions of yoga gurus, their teachings, and the individuals and organizations that have enabled their abuse. Most importantly, these abuse scenarios – whether they have […]
“I Got So High That I Saw Jesus” and the Ironies of Country Music Spirituality
Mark Hulsether Obviously, this is supposed to be slightly provocative and is not designed to be sung by an average church choir.
Persecution, Martyrdom, and Christian Identity: 7 Questions with Jason Bruner
Jason Bruner For Christian readers, especially those who are familiar with the literature on anti-Christian persecution, I would frame it this way: In whose suffering is Christ present, and why?
When Orientalist Fear Meets Post-Colonial Incongruity: The Veil Simplified through Stand-Up
Lamiae Aidi In this way, female stand-up comedians redefine the image of the veil, by offering other interpretations of the stereotype through a postcolonial humor of incongruity.
Dangerous Pedagogy: Takeaways from Taking Sacred Drugs
Gary Laderman Elaine Penagos Many of us looked forward to each class session and thought about it when we weren’t together synchronously, and there were, we think, even moments of collective effervescence that broke down the artificiality of virtual teaching, and that would have surely aroused Durkheim’s curiosity.
My Joe Rogan Experience, Experience
Gary Laderman A few weeks out, my new mantra is “this too shall pass.”