Reading Time: 4 minutes The Door McAllen, a church in Texas, has been under serious scrutiny for the past several days after performing an unlicensed, Jesus-centric production of Hamilton over the weekend. The show is not available for any outside group to perform right now, much less a church that changes the show’s message. Making matters worse, Friday night’s […]
Law
Posted inReligion
The Mormon Church’s ‘help line’ keeps sex abuse victims in danger
Reading Time: 6 minutes If you are a member of the Mormon Church and you have a problem, you’re supposed to talk to your local bishop. And if the bishop has questions about how to handle an issue—say an accusation of sexual abuse—he can call a special 24-hour “help line.” If the social worker or counselor is told about the […]
Posted inPolitics
Judge: Lawmaker who blocked atheists on Twitter must hand over documents
Reading Time: 3 minutes Arkansas State Sen. Jason Rapert has lost yet another legal battle in his pathetic quest to avoid online criticism from atheists. It’s the latest twist in a battle that started in 2018, when American Atheists filed a lawsuit against the lawmaker best known for erecting an unconstitutional Ten Commandments monument outside the State Capitol. They […]
Posted inLaw
With the Lemon Test gone, a police-led prayer vigil may be legal again
Reading Time: 6 minutes The Supreme Court’s decision to gut the Lemon Test may lead to a government-sponsored Christian prayer vigil being declared legal. More specifically, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has vacated an earlier (sensible) decision that respected church/state separation. What happens now is anyone’s guess. This saga began in 2014, when Greg Graham, chief of the Ocala […]
Posted inLaw
31 former students sue Seventh-day Adventist school for child abuse
Reading Time: 3 minutes Dozens of lawsuits have just been filed against Miracle Meadows School, a Seventh-day Adventist-run alternative school in Salem, West Virginia that has become synonymous with abuse and neglect. It comes after a previous group of students sued the school for similar reasons and came away with a hefty settlement. Miracle Meadows first made headlines for […]
Posted inLaw
New bill cracks down on scammy Christian ‘health care sharing ministries’
Reading Time: 5 minutes Three Democrats in Congress have introduced a bill designed to crack down on Christian “health insurance” companies that have scammed upwards of 1.5 million people across the country. If signed into law, the Health Share Transparency Act would provide customers with transparency so they know what they’re buying into and hold Health Care Sharing Ministries […]
Posted inReligious News
12 Christians arrested in Australia after ‘faith-healing’ death of child
Reading Time: 2 minutes 8-year-old Elizabeth Rose Struhs needed insulin to handle her Type 1 diabetes. But in January, at least a dozen members of a Christian cult in Toowoomba, Queensland (Australia) withheld that insulin for over six days. Instead of giving her the life-saving treatment, they sang and prayed asking God to take over. (It never crossed their […]
Posted inReligious News
Ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses may get access to elders’ files on them
Reading Time: 4 minutes If your religious leaders kept secret files on you, should you be allowed to have access to them once you leave the faith? That question is at the center of a controversial ruling last week involving the Jehovah’s Witnesses in British Columbia, and the story is far from over. The case involves two former members: […]
Posted inLaw
Give the devil his due: The unique role of The Satanic Temple in the fight for abortion rights
Reading Time: 6 minutes Every few months, like a barely-comprehended cultural drumbeat, Satanists are in the news—countering a Christian monument on public land with one of their own, declaring that an enormous cross is actually a Satanic symbol, or insisting that a Florida public school distributing evangelical coloring books also distribute “The Satanic Children’s Big Book of Activities.” If […]
Posted inLaw
Supreme Court rejects Christian hate group’s case over ‘hate group’ label
Reading Time: 5 minutes A request by a Christian hate group asking the Supreme Court for help in getting people to stop calling it a “hate group” has finally ended in failure. The Court said on Monday that it would not take up the case, with only Clarence Thomas dissenting. It’s the latest and final twist in a pointless […]