The New Satanic Panic and the Return of Blasphemy | Discourse! April 2021

As politics moves rightwards across Europe and the US, are we entering a period of pushback from conservative religious institutions against minority religions and secularism?

Join this month’s host Dan Gorman and guests Maxinne Connolly-Panagopoulos and Sidney Castillo to find out what connects Lil’ Nas X, Alabama’s yoga ban and Polish black metal. As with every month’s current events Discourse! episode, we take our material straight from the headlines. If you’d like to read along, here’s this month’s suggested reading list:

• Opinion | How Lil Nas X’s “Satan Shoes” brilliantly baited conservative Christians from NBC News
• Do Catholic responses to stem cell derived COVID-19 vaccines open a door to a new era in health care for LGBTQ and others? from Religion Dispatches
• Yoga can leave you injured, psychotic and a Hindu, Christian groups claim from The Guardian
• Nergal: the extreme metal musician fighting Poland’s blasphemy laws from The Guardian
• Gay and Lesbian Christians: Homosexual and Religious Identity Integration in the Members and Participants of a Gay‐Positive Church by Eric M. Rodriguez and Suzanne C. Ouellette in the JSSR
• Hinduphobia_and_Hinduphilia in U.S. Culture by Stephen Prothero from Stranger’s Religion: Fascination and Fear