Religion Dispatches
…ders pigs to be unfit for consumption (haram) and, like Judaism, it has no official ruling on xenotransplantation. While fatwas are generally derived from the Qur’an and Hadith, in the absence of both explicit and implicit rulings, scholars resort to Qiyas or jurisprudential deductive analogy to come to a reasonable conclusion on issues not found in the sacred texts. A.R. Chao, a former Imam in Texas and graduate of Vanderbilt Divinity School, su…
Read More…esture—a preemptive strike, perhaps—against charges that the LDS Church is officially involved in the campaigns of either Mitt Romney or Jon Huntsman Jr. To truly get the significance of the statement it helps to understand a little about how the extensive worldwide leadership of the Church is constituted. The LDS Church has an all-lay priesthood—no trained clergy. Just about everyone who attends Church regularly has a “calling,” an officially def…
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…being an atheist city councilman in a state that still requires government officials to believe in “Almighty God.” And if Shuler can fend off a primary challenge, he may still lose the support of his right flank to a newly-drawn district that’s even more conservative than before. The incumbent’s primary challenger, Cecil Bothwell, actually prefers the term “non-theist” to “atheist.” “I know that some atheists feel that stance ducks the issue and t…
Read More…merited the Fox logo. If ridiculing minority religions and cultures isn’t official Fox News policy, if it’s just, say, an unseemly aspect of their corporate culture, Fox might want to do something about that. Maybe it’s time to get the word down the line to hundreds of other Fox News affiliates nationwide that minority-baiting is unacceptable. Because we’ve got fifteen months left until November 2012. And it already feels like it’s going to be a…
Read More…ited the Bible’s warning against times when everyone would just ignore the official rules and instead go around making stuff up to suit the realities of their own situations. Here he is, in the New York Times Magazine article, quoted at an appearance in Iowa: “And we had a few people who didn’t see the world like we do. We had a professor who said: ‘Bob Vander Plaats should explore truth for Bob Vander Plaats. And Mary for Mary and Susan for Susa…
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…deral courts of jurisdiction in cases challenging a government entity’s or official’s “acknowledgment of God as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government.” The bill, which did not pass, nonetheless had nine Senate co-sponsors and 50 House co-sponsors; including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Bobby Jindal, now the governor of Louisiana, Nathan Deal, now the governor of Georgia, and Mike Pence, a conservative hero who’s now running for…
Read More…disavowed the practice of polygamy in this life in 1890, but it has never officially disavowed the doctrine that plural marriage is required to enter the highest levels of heaven. Mainstream LDS men who are widowed and remarry continue to be “sealed” or married for the eternities to multiple wives, while mainstream LDS women may not be married or “sealed” for the eternities to more than one man. To this day, mainstream LDS communities are quietly…
Read More…denomination has “Wisconsin” right there in the name. Lutheran + Wisconsin = growing suspicion that maybe this is not chock-full of cinematic melodrama and special effects. Here is what WELS believes: 1. There are “anti-Christian powers” that do not necessarily attach to a particular individual or office. These are bad, but they’re not demons-that-eat-people bad or laser-eye-beams bad. Pride, for example, would be an anti-Christian power. 2. Scr…
Read More…ts on a green background. In the café I’m sitting in right now, there’s no official Bosnian flag in sight. But there are Turkish and Palestinian flags, while Muslim pop songs by British superstar Sami Yusuf blast on repeat. Each of Bosnia’s constituent peoples sees itself as the farthest end of their respective civilizations, whose essences, based on the flags at least, are found elsewhere. Bosnia isn’t a place, then, it’s an intersection, and at…
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…by organizers or staff. Some of the less-than-affirming messages came from official programming. Tony and Peggy Campolo gave their much-practiced talk, touted in the program as “a model of how to disagree agreeably,” about their differences on the matter of LGBT affirmation (she’s “for,” and he’s “against.”). Off-stage, Campolo lectured LGBT audience members who approached him that “when either side imposes its views on the other, it’s tyranny.” C…
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