Religion Dispatches
…ation of the actual situations of human beings. For more than 30 years, pro-life advocates have believed they understood pro-choice logic and they’ve warned about its inevitable conclusion. But as report after report of that conclusion turn out to be fakes mistaken for fact, it’s hard not to think the pro-life people are just wrong: The slope isn’t that slippery….
Read More…urrently, 78% of white evangelicals support Donald Trump (identical to the number that voted for Mitt Romney in 2012). John McCain? 74%. George W. Bush 2000 and 2004? 68 and 78%, respectively. And despite the whopper of zombie lies told by Ted Cruz, no, 54 million evangelical voters did not stay home in 2012, rather than vote for Romney. In fact, white evangelicals have made up around one-quarter of the electorate ever since 2000. According to Pew…
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…ion: “The Girl with the Pierced Nipple.” Granted, fashion magazines are seldom known for their courageous stands, but the caption could have said any number of things. The Woman Against Rape or The Woman Who Kicks Ass or The Woman Who Fights Back—I’d even settle for A Girl Who Fights Back. But nipple piercing? Really? When there’s all that other material? Which sums up the problem with Dragon Tattoo, the movie: not only does it participate in the…
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…procreation of human life.” The pope had deferred to a dissenting minority report prepared by four conservative theologian priests on the commission that maintained contraception was a “sin against nature” and a “shameful and intrinsically vicious act.” These theologians said that church could not change its teaching on birth control because admitting the church had been wrong about the issue for centuries would raise questions about the moral aut…
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…t Christianity Today put so much time and effort—not to mention pages—into reporting this story; he replied, “As a director of a journalism program, I can say that the length of the CT articles doesn’t necessarily reflect the import nor the accuracy of their conclusions on a complex situation involving many individuals.” He notes that he can’t speak to CT’s motivations, but said that he shares their “interest in confirming orthodoxy and uplifting…
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…They also promote their belief that the United States is a White Christian republic rather than a multiracial democracy. And in a number of cases they turn their conviction that White Christians have superior civil and political rights—over those they deem “Fourteenth Amendment” citizens (everybody else)—into fraudulent schemes with fake money. In other instances, they establish “Christian” courts and militia groups that act as if they are legitim…
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…poused by AIPAC are right-wing Christian fundamentalists, who tend to vote Republican anyway. Furthermore, Obama has been far more dependent on large numbers of small donors from his grassroots base and less on the handful of wealthy donors affiliated with such special interest groups as AIPAC. This speech may have cost him large numbers of these smaller, progressive donors without gaining him much from the small numbers of larger, more conservati…
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…istorical-critical commentary, and a public space that guarantees both freedom of and from religion. Hence, I am certain the number of self-proclaimed “spiritual but not religious” people at the marches on January 21st was significant. But, more importantly, I wonder what those spiritual people will do now to resist the oppressive policies and efforts of the Trump administration? It is not enough to raise their signs at Women’s Marches, lower thei…
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…Rifle Associations’ lucrative death grip on the trigger conscience of the Republican Party. Republicans voted down expansions of background checks that would include stricter limits to online and gun show purchases and the prevention of firearm sales to persons on the terror watch list. People of faith have a sacramental duty to hold lawmakers accountable for protecting the sacredness of human life. While we debated prayer and deconstructed the m…
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…wish identity that requires very little effort.” Indeed, when the House of Representatives passed a GOP bill asserting all anti-Zionism was antisemitism they found a surprising opponent in Jerry Nadler (NY-12), the representative with the largest Jewish constituency in the country. Painfully alive to the problem of antisemitism, Nadler nonetheless described the bill as trying “to weaponize Jewish lives for political gains.” He ripped into the Hous…
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