Religion Dispatches
…guments and strategies that have failed in the court of public opinion and today in the Supreme Court. Many are already arguing about the great damage that will be done to marriage with today’s decisions. I would suggest that a more important damage to Christian witness in American culture has already been done, not by the Supreme Court but by the Christian activists; and not just today but for a generation or more. And that damage will intensify…
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…bsolute devotion to the sex, violence, and drugs of the film. Christianity Today’s review makes one wonder why they even reviewed it in the first place, as it seems to indicate the film has nothing to do either with “Christianity,” or “today” for that matter. More specifically, it’s curious how few religiously-oriented reviewing outlets were able to see possible symbolic references to, say, Abraham and Isaac, Jesus, or others. So, I’m left wonderi…
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…le, when, in discussing evangelical pushback against outgoing Christianity Today editor Mark Galli’s December 2019 op-ed, “Trump Should Be Removed from Office,” Geddis remarks, “That letter rebuking the Christianity Today editorial was signed not only by leaders of typical evangelical organisations, but also by political figures such as former Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and a number of prosperity-gospel televangelists.” Meanwhile, G…
Read More…ern California’s Saddleback Community College, a public school part of the South Orange County Community College District, has been offering up Christian prayers at annual scholarship award presentations, graduations and other events despite ongoing requests by students, faculty and members of the public that the prayers offend their religious beliefs. Donald Wagner, president of the Board of Trustees, took offense to their offense. So, in respons…
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…Graham rushed to its defense. Rep. Randy Forbes, leader of the congressional prayer caucus, is proud of his association. Rep. Frank Wolf and former Rep. Tony Hall took to the pages of Christianity Today to publish such a disingenuous defense that even USA Today scoffed. But that didn’t shake them. It’s taken a hit from its own members, but it’s not down and out….
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…, reasonably enough, the Khilafat (Caliphate) Movement. Though Ottoman and South Asian Muslims lived in distinct territories, and the Ottomans never ruled over greater India, a Muslim minority in India, under British rule, resented and feared British colonial aggression against an important symbol of their faith. So Shia and Sunni Muslims joined together to support what was traditionally a Sunni institution, the Caliphate. Fast forward a few decad…
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…funds for poverty alleviation or affordable housing, or, as they are doing today, for an extension of unemployment insurance or a raise in the minimum wage, but they dare not question the underlying structures that create poverty or homelessness or long-term unemployment. The more they were targeted by the Right for even these liberal aspirations, the more timid and uninspiring they became. In the liberal pews there is rarely a naming of the “prin…
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…ow, for example, that exposure to ultraviolet radiation triggers mutations today, then we can also assume it would have had a similar influence on creatures living hundreds of millions of years ago. Meyer observes that, today, when we see something intricate and functional—such as a computer or a can opener—we assume that it’s been designed by some intelligence. Consequently, extrapolating from present observations into the past, the design of an…
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…xceptionalism that we have promoted for millennia from the Hebrew Bible to today? It is, in a way, the dark side of chosenness. If we say, “God, who is the creator of the universe, chooses the Jews above all others,” and promote that view by pointing to holy scripture, is it surprising that some of those others will hold negative opinions of us? This is what Spinoza argued. If you think this sounds provocative, it’s actually sewn into our very tra…
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…ationist, hegemonic WASP politics that son Franklin Graham and many others promote today. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Franklin Graham simply represents a more strident version of 1950s Billy Graham. It’s not surprising then, that Billy Graham will finish his race in the United States Capitol next week. House Speaker Paul Ryan has indicated that Billy Graham will lie in state in the Capitol from February 28 to March 1st. For the most…
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