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.

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The Billionaires Selling School Vouchers to Buy the Soul of a Nation

1 week ago | religiondispatches.org | Hialy Gutierrez

A federal school voucher program, or “universal school choice” as supporters call it, is a key piece of the Right’s agenda to dramatically change education as we’ve known it. A central element in the Project 2025 agenda, the effort began a little over a week after President Donald Trump took office and signed an executive order aimed at expanding the use of public funds for private education.
For Times Such as These: Sacred Time and Radical Community Building in the Diaspora

2 weeks ago | religiondispatches.org | Shane Burley

While Jewish history is so often recounted as a linear pathway—usually pointing toward and ending with the creation of the State of Israel—it’s easy to forget that it’s a tradition of cycles. The Torah is read in weekly increments, called parashiyot, and the Hebrew calendar acts as an arcane map to locate the spiritual tools left by ancestors.
Capitalism’s Violence calls for Collective Wrath, not Luigi Mangione’s Privatized Rage

2 weeks ago | religiondispatches.org | Mark Dery

A grainy, jittery video has gone viral on social media. Duct-taped to a chair and goggle-eyed with fear, the hostage, a Dark MAGA tech bro, is petrified—and for good reason: the balaclava-clad terrorist behind him is gleefully revving a chainsaw inches from his neck. Inscribed on it, in ironic homage to the saw Elon Musk brandished at the 2025 CPAC conference, is the legend Viva la libertad, carajo (“Long live liberty, damn it”). Have you seen it?
Against American Exceptionalism? Pope Leo XIV v. US Christian Nationalism

3 weeks ago | religiondispatches.org | Ed Simon

During the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, where bishops, archbishops, and abbots convened in 1884 to, among other issues, discuss the establishment of the Catholic University of America, the Archbishop of Minneapolis John Ireland delivered a star-spangled homily.
Germany classifies ‘right-wing extremist’ AfD as a danger to democracy - and high-ranking Trump officials jump to defend it

3 weeks ago | religiondispatches.org | Annika Brockschmidt |Thomas Zimmer

Last week, the BfV, a German intelligence agency tasked with investigating threats to the “liberal democratic basic order,” made headlines by officially classifying the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party as “right-wing extremist.” This news shouldn’t have come as a shock. Since 2021, the far-right AfD has been monitored as a “suspected case” of right-wing extremism.
White Smoke, Black Pope? Pope Leo XIV, first US pontiff, has African roots

4 weeks ago | religiondispatches.org | Nathaniel Tinner

The Catholic Church has a new leader, with the Augustinian cardinal Robert Prevost elected as Pope Leo XIV, his chosen name as Bishop of Rome. He is the first American pope and the first of African descent since the fifth century. The understated candidate triumphed on the second day of voting in a count kept under permanent Vatican seal.
EXPERTS AGREE: what Trump is doing is fascism

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

While too many American leaders are content to quibble over definitional particularities, experts are (finally) calling a fascist a fascist. Jason Stanley, a fascism expert who publicly announced his decision to flee Trump’s authoritarian crackdown on universities and leave Yale for The University of Toronto’s renowned Munk School in Canada, recently told German newspaper Die Zeit that the Americans are living under “fascist conditions.” “What other terms should we use?” Stanley asked.
What The Roman Catholic Church needs is a wholesale reset, not a new Pope

1 month ago | religiondispatches.org | Mary Hunt

The death of Pope Francis, after a very public diminishment, closes a signal chapter in Catholic history with absolutely no certainty about who or what comes next. Rather than reflexively corralling the cardinals into a Conclave to elect his successor, I propose a wholesale institutional reset to maximize the Roman Catholic Church’s usefulness. Francis’ agenda to end war, save the planet, support migrants, and eliminate starvation is crucial.
Women’s Liberation Front Attempts to Liberate Women’s Sports from Gender Equality

1 month 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

2 months 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.