Religion Dispatches
…[Editor’s Note: After this post went up I received an email from Focus on the Family’s newsletter, Citizenlink, telling the story of a woman whose former wife is seeking custody of their daughter, Isabella. Citizenlink…
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…gate, and you have to do exactly as they say.” Steve Scheffler, president of the Iowa Christian Alliance, was chosen to head Iowa’s forty-member delegation to the Republican National Convention. Grassley, the state’s senior Republican official, was denied a seat in the delegation. Apparently, the leaders of the Religious Right in Iowa are not only determined and militant. They can be churlish and petulant as well, even to an erstwhile ally. The se…
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…t to the department a long time ago—but it still seems daunting to make it official. What do you think? MH: You’ve taken quite a few Religious Studies courses, and you’ve watched me teach for years, so you have some idea what you’re getting yourself into. How do you see the pros and cons? LH: Yeah, I’ve taken five classes. My favorites were “Gender in US Religion,” “Religion and Immigration,” and “The Bible and Human Rights.” I love the field and…
Read More…ther public institutions in their areas that are removing Christmas as the official designation of the season and to use their influence to restore Christmas to its proper place in the culture.” Although I doubt that any of my Lutheran, Catholic, Muslim, or atheist friends will call me to complain about this resolution, I find it just as troubling as many of the previous more controversial resolutions. As a Baptist, I tend to use Scripture as a he…
Read More…, decides that humanity isn’t necessarily worth protecting. After all, his official title is “Guardian of the Universe,” and if humankind is going to harm the universe with wars and pollution, then why should he bother with us? We’re not quite the threat that other, evil giant monsters are, but if we get in the way of a stray fireball here or there, it’s no concern of Gamera’s. This cynical philosophy is embodied in the form of a 10-minute rampage…
Read More…James Warlick, who told a Bulgarian TV station, “We should all live our lives the way we wish… No one should be abused and tortured because of some prejudice.” The Orthodox Church had called for the march to be banned; one official criticized a priest’s call for protestors to throw rocks at police, but insisted that the very existence of the gay pride march “violates the rights of Orthodox Christians.” Now why does that sound so familiar? …
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…s earlier books, Feiler’s newest is a travelogue that mixes pilgrimages to sites, conversations with the keepers of the flame, interviews with leading figures and scholars, and personal reflection. He sets out on a midnight trek on the former underground railway, tries on Charlton Heston’s Moses costume from the 1950s blockbuster The Ten Commandments, and even reports on a private meeting with George W. Bush in the White House. In a nutshell, Fei…
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…l the Catholic Church’s rhetoric on family and human life the Archdiocesan officials would have a little shame about abandoning their work with children. If they could bring themselves to confront the dire needs of DC’s foster children, they would hide their faces rather than be connected with any policy that would prevent children from being placed in loving homes regardless of the gender constellation of the parents. Alas, there is a shortage of…
Read More…al responsibility for the care of souls, and that unlike an actual elected official, Beck has no actual responsibility for devising practicable solutions to incredibly thorny problems like financial market meltdowns, runaway health care costs, or ending the costly and ill-conceived wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yes, it is in fact easier to pray on your knees (as Beck exhorted his audience Saturday) than it is to wrap your head around credit-defaul…
Read More…National Center for Science Education, under the subject heading “FYI.” An official, outraged over the email, demanded that Comer resign from her position. The issue? The email was about an upcoming talk by Barbara Forrest, a philosopher of science and one of the creationists’ most hated enemies. Forrest wrote, along with her co-author Paul R. Gross, Creationism’s Trojan Horse, a damning and carefully documented account of “intelligent design’s” c…
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