Religion Dispatches
…We have an unprecedented access to cheap goods, yet we must recognize that cheap goods are cheaply made. I am not speaking of quality, I am speaking of cheap labor. We must recognize that through the act of shopping, whether it is for an article of clothing, a toy, a pint of strawberries, or even our morning cup of coffee, we participate in a global economy that values profit over people. Disposable goods are made by disposable people, faceless in…
Read More
…ess them through numerous venues: television networks like the Trinity Broadcasting Network, GOD TV, and DayStar; numerous conferences across the country, and other multimedia sources. Just as people discover someone new through these sources, they frequently reject certain personalities for a number of reasons: their profit motive, their authoritarianism, unattainable demands to “get closer to God” through “radical prayer,” or what the consumer c…
Read More
…e success either. The opening weekend saw sales of more than $6 million in tickets. That’s the kind of number that will inspire others to try and figure out the formula for the faith-and-family blockbuster. Yet, with the cost of the film reportedly exceeding $30 million, it’s an open question whether or not the Left Behind reboot will get a second installment. The marketing problem of evangelical movies is still, stubbornly, a problem. The general…
Read More
…uth westward had much less to do with a random vision to build a church in Colorado Springs than the rapid population boom fueled by cheap land that would lead to a new free market Christianity political power base in the Western United States. In less than a decade, Haggard built one of the most influential megachurches in the nation. Not Everybody Loves a Comeback Story Today, Haggard and his wife Gayle jet set nearly every weekend to speak at e…
Read More
…orized as ‘Spiritual Mapping’… A team flown in from the New Life Church in Colorado Springs secretively anointed traditional fetish huts and whole villages. A year later in 1997, Alix Spiegel described Ted Haggard’s New Life Church members methodically ‘prayer walking’ the streets, trying to drive away territorial demon spirits from Colorado Springs. Two years later, in 1999, the new paradigm came to the Wasilla Assembly of God via a video that wa…
Read More
…ou’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 way. (I would accept Lakers tickets in lieu of apologies, but I think that particular era is done.) This whole book is a result of a profound evolution, and needs to be seen as such. American Muslims have gone through a lot over the last few decades. We were never the caricature Islamophobes made us ou…
Read MoreAt oral argument in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. and Conestoga Wood Specialties, Inc. v. Sebelius this morning, the Supreme Court justices spent a great deal of time questioning the lawyers in the case about whether corporations have a religious conscience, and whether Congress intended to protect it when enacting the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). What was most striking, though, was how all three female justices, Sonia So…
Read More
…te segregation and economic favoritism. When I spoke with Rothstein on the phone, he underscored the long-term effects of this last policy. During the 1940s and 1950s, suburban subdivisions were built in St. Louis, and throughout the country, using federal loans stipulating that no homes be sold to African Americans. Priced at about $125,000 in today’s dollars, these were affordable—with a mortgage—to working class families, black or white. Yet bl…
Read More
…t this new role as he and his American Episcopalian guides drove East from Denver to Louisiana, up through South Carolina to Washington DC. ______________________ RD: A number of American human rights experts have said that the killing and forced displacement of the Ngok Dinka people from Abyei in May, and their replacement by the Arab, northern-aligned Misseriya, constitutes “ethnic cleansing.” Is ethnic cleansing part of what is happening in Ka…
Read MoreDenver, Colorado can feel like an alternate universe for a lot of reasons, but now we can add a new one to the list. Because in the first such case of which I’m aware, a bakery in Denver has been sued for refusing to bake a homophobic cake. According to the reports, the plaintiff in the suit requested that the baker bake him a cake that said “God hates gays” along with a picture of two men holding hands with an X over them. When the baker—who ide…
Read More