Religion Dispatches
…ciated from America’s shameful slaveholding past and the ghosts of so many Africans who died so that slavery might live, and African Americans brutally killed as a result of prejudice, hatred, and injustice. In our enlightened, scientific age, we don’t believe in the existence of ghosts or spirits or the dead come back to life to haunt, inspire, or teach the living. Halloween is not a time for serious reflection about the presence of the dead in o…
Read More…deeper unity amidst our diversity. The “yes we can” spirit includes women, African Americans and evangelicals. It includes the LBGT community, all parties in the Middle East, includes Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, employed and unemployed—the list is endless. What if the opening prayer at the inauguration were a call to recognize that we are all a part of each other in the deepest and most profound way? What if the invocation to the ina…
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…e blessed by a unique ability—indeed destiny—to be free of conflict, to be free of the past, to “believe in the same dream that says this is a country where anything’s possible.” Anything? Really? You can almost hear the pantheon of European Christian theologians groaning from their graves in disbelief. But, hey, this is the New World where the frontier has traditionally offered the eternal lure of new beginnings and limitless wealth, even…
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…ment (or the expenditure of tax dollars). As Loughner explains, algebra is free. Charging a student for an algebra class amounts to selling a free product and is a scam. If the world worked properly, grammar and currency would convey real value without distortion. But because of government practices of mind control and currency fraud, they do not. As a way out of these misrepresentations, individuals need to learn to dream, a practice that he lab…
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…me the suffering of the most miserable; So I will know my people’s plight. Free me to pray for others; For you are present in every person. Help me to take responsibility for my own life; So that I can be free at last. Grant me courage to serve others; For in service there is true life. Give me honesty and patience; So that I can work with other workers. Bring forth song and celebration; So that the spirit will be alive among us. Let the spirit fl…
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…serter, and denier. Therefore they faced a reminder that they too were not free of the sin that leads to the cross, and were in need of conversion. We Are All Betrayer, Deserter, Denier If Heim is right about this, then Jones and Phelps and their respective congregations are symbolically enacting the very thing that the passion stories central to Christianity were intended to repudiate. Where they are called to see the crucified Christ in those wh…
Read More…free in verse: “I’m not trying to profit off the prophet so this one’s for free.” He does this, ironically, even as his lyrics laud one of the most prominent black prosperity preachers, Creflo Dollar. Apparently, the two share a commitment to, as Lupe puts it, “no sex before you’re married,” if not a business ethic. And then there’s the fact that Kanye recorded three different videos for the song. Two of these got plenty of play on major cable net…
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…ween conflicting religious attitudes, and the freedom at stake is not only freedom of expression but freedom of religion. For while Luther was surely engaging in offensive speech, he was also exercising a right of freedom of conscience, which included the right to dissent from Catholic orthodoxy. Debased though Luther’s rhetoric may have been, there was no way to be a reformer without offending the hegemon. It’s a story as old as religion. Orthodo…
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…t from certified nurse midwives, who have extensive medical training) from Central Indiana Home Birth Midwives. According to retired OB-GYN blogger Amy Tuteur, the midwife told Chmielewski that she was carrying twins, and maintained her diagnosis despite an ultrasound that only revealed one fetus, claiming that one twin was “hiding” behind the other. As Chmielewski was nearly three weeks past her due date, the midwife advised her to wait; when the…
Read More…ects no one. It restores no one’s civil rights. It advances no progressive agenda. May all of us—including Fred Karger—enjoy shame-free holidays and a shame-free 2012….
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