Religion Dispatches
…e ugliness and barbarity of indiscriminate violence. Too many people—not just dentists on Virgin Airlines—make statements like, “Muslims don’t do enough to reject terrorism.” It’s probable many of them have never met Muslims. If they tried, they might be surprised. In fact, the reaction to my essay—you’ll read an excerpt below—has surprised me, too. I wish I could find my airline companion and give him this book, to surprise him, too—in a good w…
Read More…hen enacting the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). What was most striking, though, was how all three female justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, fired the most challenging questions at the companies’ lawyer, Paul Clement, confronting the essential underpinnings of his clients’ claims. In particular, they questioned whether RFRA was intended to cover corporations, whether a party can claim a religious exempt…
Read More…tan Ministries, whose president, James Lansberry, speaks at Christian Reconstructionist events, is the largest of the health care sharing ministries. Samaritan has about 46,000 members, and there are thought to be 100,000 members of HCSMs nationwide. And even though the exemption in the health care bill was limited to HCSMs and members in existence before the passage of the law, Medi-Share, a Florida HCSM, was last year claiming that 11 million Am…
Read More
…we won’t be able to offer you a ticket or a place.” Then, as men and boys strode past them into the Tabernacle where they awaited the opportunity to move to the Conference Center where the session would take place, members of Ordain Women lined up individually or in pairs to request and be denied admission by church representative Doug Peterson. According to Mike Stevens of Ogden, Utah, who stood nearby and filmed the exchanges, each woman had a…
Read More
…called “procedural justice”—increase procedural confidence, procedural trust, trusting institutions, because we understand, “Oh, okay, that’s how it works, that’s what they’re trying to do that; it doesn’t always succeed, but they’re doing the best they can, they’re adjusting along the way, they’re improving.” If we had that knowledge, we would blame a lot less because we would recognize that many of these things that are not perfect are either b…
Read More…wished not to be named, said that homosexuality was a “cardinal sin” in most strands of Islamic thought. He emphasised that the same view was held in most world religions, including Christianity and Judaism…. There is still little information on how many gay Muslims are living in Britain – not least because many (especially regular worshippers such as the members of the support group) remain closeted, out of fear of reprisal from conservative ele…
Read More
…’t just happen, it has to be invited. This happens in what he calls the first stage of possession, or Encroachment: “First occurs the encroachment—or permission—stage, where a negative spirit is given access to a human being through either voluntary means (satanic rituals) or involuntary means (curses).” Those voluntary means include things like visiting a psychic, playing with a Ouija board, or otherwise “dabbling in the occult.” The cult surroun…
Read More
…s, political campaigns and interviews with high-ranking officials. The priest stands in for God. The journalist stands in for the community at-large. The latter just felt more honest. Coming back to a spiritual community felt familiar, yes, by which I mean dishonest, delusional, disingenuous. But I kept those reservations at bay. I meditated at dawn for 90 minutes. I heeded the silence imposed during breakfast. I dutifully attended lectures on med…
Read More
…ty so popular in the Victorian Era. Angels populate greeting cards for Christmas and Easter, baptisms and first communions, confirmations and funerals, as well as for health, as in this example. They’re distinctly non-denominational, non-theological, and in a strange way non-religious, a cipher intending to signify happiness and goodness more than any doctrinal affirmation. That these qualities are associated with Whiteness is telling, if not surp…
Read More
…nts: that it may become probable by supernatural interference!” Was it Minister Louis Farrakhan? Rev. Jeremiah Wright? Some other Black liberation theologian? No, no, and no. These words were penned by Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and third President of the United States. In Notes on the State of Virginia, Jefferson pondered the threat that a slaveholding nation faced by holding others in bondage. Jefferson’s words s…
Read More