Religion Dispatches
Am I stepping out of bounds by raising the possibility that perhaps a good many Christians who love this country, and who hate this president and blame the government for all that ails them, are religious in ways that are not so readily apparent in their own self-image?
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Hate is as American as apple pie. A sentiment stitched into the fabric of national life from the early stirrings of Revolution in the colonies.
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Throughout US history the perpetrators of religiously-inspired violence have usually been white Protestant men fearful of non-Protestant communities.
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In the wake of the June 28th Supreme Court ruling, thoughts on the gun’s sacred role in US culture and our God-given right to be violent…
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On any given day, Christianity is invoked to justify pacifism, violent uprising, both opposition and support for government health care, even support and opposition to genres of music. Do we have to reevaluate our conceptions of ‘what Christians believe’ in the same way we’ve had to do it for Hindus, Native Americans, and others?
Read MoreAs the ‘gods’ of Hollywood descend in designer digs, religion scholars Gary Laderman and Anthea Butler discuss the divinity of celebrity in America.
Read MoreWas Fox News commentator Brit Hume merely demonstrating Christian chauvinism when he recommended that Tiger Woods convert to Christianity? Or are there deeper levels of ignorance to be plumbed here?
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What does the word “God” mean? Anything and everything, depending on whether you’re a Bible-believer or an atheist, a rap artist or a writer for South Park, a peyote-eater or Meg Ryan in a diner…
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The scale and longevity of mistreating the remains at Burr Oak Cemetery is astonishing indeed, but it does have a familiar ring to it in the longer view of US history, if not human history generally, of attitudes toward and abuses of the dead.
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