Religion Dispatches

Religion Dispatches is a daily online magazine that operates as a non-profit, focusing on the intersections of religion, politics, and culture through a progressive or liberal interfaith lens. Established in 2007, it was created by Gary Laderman, a religion studies expert from Emory University; Linell Cady, a religion studies specialist from Arizona State University; and Evan Derkacz, a journalist who previously contributed to AlterNet.

National

English

Magazine

Outlet metrics

Domain Authority

Ranking

Global

#593261

United States

#179716

Community and Society/Faith and Beliefs

#2949

Traffic sources

Monthly visitors

Articles

Women’s Liberation Front Attempts to Liberate Women’s Sports from Gender Equality

1 week ago | religiondispatches.org | Hannah Silver

In June 2024, a group of anti-trans feminists crisscrossed the U.S. with right-wing women activists to “take back” a civil rights law. This Winter/Spring 2025 issue of The Public Eye examines gender and authoritarianism.
Don’t Take the Bait - Kristi Noem and Fascism’s Sadistic Eroticization of Power

3 weeks ago | religiondispatches.org | Jeff Sharlet

The image above is an altered detail from a video posted on X by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, along with a series of still photographs from her tour of the El Salvador prison to which Trump is deporting an untold number of immigrants. You know, of course, that Trump claims that they’re all gang members. And you know also, I suspect, that many aren’t.
Exalted Insurrectionists, Kremlin-Friendly Bombast, and a Smattering of Nazi Salutes - Notes from CPAC 2025

1 month ago | religiondispatches.org | Annika Brockschmidt |Thomas Zimmer

Matt and Mercedes Schlapp opened this year’s CPAC by celebrating: “Last year I said globalism was going to die,” Matt boomed, “and then it happened!” Then he turned to the audience and announced: “[I have a] message [for] the globalists, [be they] at the World Economic Forum or the EU,” adding, with a smile: “You can boo at any time!” The real star of MAGA While the first guest to appear onstage at the Gaylord Convention Center in Maryland was supposed to have been JD Vance, the Vice...
About RD

1 month ago | religiondispatches.org | Evan Derkacz |Megan Goodwin |Lisa Webster |Annika Brockschmidt

Religion Dispatches is an award-winning, independent, non-profit sourcefor expert analysis at the intersection of religion, politics, and culture. __________Religion Dispatches offers new ways to think about how religion works in (and on) American culture and politics. We invite an open discussion of religious ideas, communities, and practices, rooted in leftist thought and an unwavering commitment to justice.
Silence of the Nuns - Oscar Darling ‘Conclave’ Contains Subtle Indictment of Catholic Church’s Views on Women

2 months ago | religiondispatches.org | Patricia Miller

There are many pleasures for students of the Catholic Church in Conclave—which recently received eight Oscar nominations—from the glimpses behind the doors of the uber-secretive papal conclave itself to the spot-on portrayal of the lush-austere pageantry of an institution that is some eight centuries older than the British monarchy.
Confronting Trump Directly, Bishop Mariann Budde Showed That Not All Religious Leaders are Spineless Sycophants

2 months ago | religiondispatches.org | Mary Hunt

Bishop of Washington, Mariann Edgar Budde, led A Service of Prayer for the Nation on January 21, 2025, at the Washington National Cathedral. President Donald J. Trump and entourage were among the invited guests. Her clear and simple message of unity, her direct call for mercy especially for immigrants and LGBTQIA+ people who are under threat by the new administration, riled the re-elected President.
Proud to be [a Real] American — Lee Greenwood’s ‘God Bless the USA’ and the Politics of the ‘Apolitical’ | Religion Dispatches

Jan 22, 2025 | religiondispatches.org

When you’re raised in an authoritarian Christian community you can never quite comfortably fit into, you learn early on about the ambiguity of language. Words like “love,” for example, mean very different things to a person who respects others’ bodily autonomy and a person who associates loving thei
‘Saint Luigi, Patron Saint of Healthcare Access for All’ - Enraged by Corporate Health Care Some View Assassin as a Folk Hero

Jan 7, 2025 | religiondispatches.org | Emma Cieslik

When Luigi Mangione was arrested for the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson he had in his possession a handwritten document in which he described healthcare corporations as “mafiosa [that] have gotten too powerful,” and declared that he was “the first to face it with such brutal honesty.” His image has since proliferated on saint candles, prayer cards, posters, while frequent RD contributor Ed Simon notes in “The Canonization of St. Luigi” that “authorities inadvertently...
Bipartisan Bills Aimed at Pro-Palestine Groups Could Be Used to Target Political Opponents and Non-Profits

Dec 19, 2024 | religiondispatches.org | Habiba Farh

Since the election, there’s been a bipartisan effort in Congress to push legislation that could have a significant impact on nonprofits such as charities, universities, and religious institutions.
While Nixon Sought to Secretly ‘Screw’ Political Enemies Trump’s Dictatorial Desires Are Less Modest

Dec 9, 2024 | religiondispatches.org | Steven Gardiner

On August 16, 1971, White House Counsel John Dean circulated a confidential memo to Nixon loyalists titled “Dealing with our Political Enemies” which proposed a plan for the administration to best “use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.” The memo concluded that they didn’t need “an elaborate mechanism or game plan”—just an appointed project coordinator who would be understood to speak for the President.