Religion Dispatches
…e more likely to feel a sense of stigma, highest among those living in the south. For instance, 57 percent of U.S. respondents said they felt they would suffer at least minor social repercussions in the workplace if they came out as an atheist, compared to only 35 percent of respondents in Canada, 24 percent of Australians, 15 percent of residents of United Kingdom, and 12 percent of Western Europeans. The post sparked a great discussion in the co…
Read More…and American Law. Botham counterposes the legal structure in the American South, based in Protestantism, with the legal structure of the West, based in Catholicism, by looking at two court cases challenging interracial marriage laws: the more familiar Loving v. Virginia and Perez v. Lippold. What I loved about this book is how Botham looks at the way biblical interpretation, legal history, and the institution of slavery interact to create ever-ev…
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…Arizona), David Vitter (Louisiana), Tom Coburn (Oklahoma), and Jim DeMint (South Carolina), as well as eight House candidates. The Angle campaign embraced the endorsement, with her spokesperson saying, “Not only is Mrs. Angle unafraid of guns, but she is also unafraid to stand up against those who would attempt to deny the legal rights of other gun owners.” Pratt, whose advocacy has led him to intersect not only with the Tea Partiers, but also wit…
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…t political candidates, has chosen to endorse Gordon Howie for Governor of South Dakota from the pulpit. Howie has asked for pastoral support and in return has promised to assist those pastors in taking their inevitable IRS trials to the Supreme Court in an effort to end separation of church and state in America. Pastor, I recognize your frustration, and I see how things have come to this. For years America has only shrugged at religion, and recen…
Read MoreThis week Neo-Pagans celebrated the summer solstice at Stonehenge. In South Carolina, Nikki Haley is celebrating her win in the GOP primary for governor and her triumph over questions of whether she is “really a Christian.” However, there are still those who don’t buy her conversion to Methodism. Are social media changing religion? Maybe. But could religion be changing our media, as well? Again, maybe. Apple’s Steve Jobs, a guru for techies, h…
Read More…e groups, DeMar also has a companion organization that can raise money and promote candidates for elected office: Vision to America. Yesterday, Vision to America sent a fundraising appeal in support of Nevada’s Republican nominee to the U.S. Senate, Sharron Angle, from South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint’s political action committee, the Senate Conservatives Fund. Like Rand Paul in Kentucky, DeMint is bucking the Republican establishment by endorsin…
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…the so-called Charismatic and Pentecostal “shift in gravity” from the Deep South westward had much less to do with a random vision to build a church in Colorado Springs than the rapid population boom fueled by cheap land that would lead to a new free market Christianity political power base in the Western United States. In less than a decade, Haggard built one of the most influential megachurches in the nation. Not Everybody Loves a Comeback Story…
Read More…heology, the Marxist-influenced school of thought developed by Central and South American theologians, and waged an aggressive media campaign in support of the Reagan administration’s policies in Nicaragua, El Salvador and elsewhere, alleging links between liberal church leaders and Marxist guerillas. After the Cold War, Naughton continues: The IRD turned its attention from the mainline churches’ activities in Central America to the churches’ inte…
Read More…sionaries—two American, three Peruvian—were killed by leftist guerillas in South America in 1989, 1990, and 1991.) The globalization of the Church brings new pressures to our concept of who we Mormons are and what constitutes moral and humane behavior in the contemporary world. We are now a religious tradition that is home not only to Russell Pearce, the author of Arizona’s immigration law SB 1070, but also to Anglo and Latino Mormon activists…
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…l, of course, was common to both, played with equal fervor by farm boys in Indiana and gang bangers in South Central. And not only did he survive in the wilds of Los Angeles, he thrived, voted by the Sporting News in 2009 as the greatest coach of all time. As a young Muslim kid growing up in Toronto in the 1970s, I had very few Muslim role models. One of them was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Coach Wooden’s 7-foot-2-inch center at UCLA. In learning more ab…
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