Religion Dispatches
…woman as chaplain but will endorse a woman who is not ordained. Women are welcome to study at SBC seminaries as long as they do not have an eye on the pastorate. In some places female students are prohibited from enrolling in preaching classes. Although many women major in Religious Studies at Baptist colleges and seminaries across the land few find leadership positions in SBC churches, there are only 150 female pastors serving in the moderate Co…
Read More…cision could be profound and far-reaching. And they extend well beyond the welcome revisiting of the fundamental question concerning the balance between the local and the global, the pull of economic necessity and the push toward human rights. The fact that the new electronic media are the site of this battle is the real story. From Athens and Tehran, to Beijing and elsewhere, a younger generation that has grown up with computers, and cellphones,…
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…ogic put the lie to this seductive and simplistic narrative. RDRoundtable: Welcome to “The Family” Jeff Sharlet, Anthea Butler, Diane Winston, and Randall Balmer Is an “aggressively anti-democratic” Christian movement quietly steering us toward a “theocentric” state? Three scholars discuss The Family with the author. Sparks fly. RDEpistle: Open Letter to Sean Hannity Candace Chellew-Hodge Bestsellers by the stars of conservative media were found a…
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…sive study and buoyant fellowship. After an hour of prayer and extravagant welcome, Roof pursued his lethal goal, murdering a recent college graduate, grandparents, mothers, friends and clergy. The site of this white terrorist attack intimates a broader attack on the idea of black freedom. Emanuel Church embodies a storied and triumphant history in the American south. Historically, this place of transformative faith invested capital and bodies in…
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…t Mormon scholars like Bringhurst believe that this is a natural, and even welcome, vetting process of both Mormons as American and a Mormon as the chief American. (In this vetting process, one belief that America will soon discover—and a belief that the Mormon candidates could make more of—is that the LDS Church counts the Constitution as divinely inspired. Thus the Mormon canon of sacred scriptures includes the central document of America’s poli…
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…stians. This seems obvious, but apparently it bears repeating: a season of welcome and sharing, regardless of the religious beliefs of those who observe it, is a good thing. This is why it seems nonsensical that some pugnacious conservatives want to insist that those around them ignore the long history of this season and portray it as explicitly and exclusively Christian. It is not, and should not be. Just as Christians need the imperatives of Adv…
Read More…e. The government has no business trying to convince you otherwise. You’re welcome to sit down. We invited you to stand, but no one made you. But if you do believe, I would ask you, personally and not on behalf of the government, to take a moment to thank Him, for the many gifts you believe you have received from Him, including the opportunity to pursue an education in a country explicitly founded on the belief that we are endowed by our Creator w…
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…aim to humanize those who engage with conspiracy theories is laudable and welcome, the treatment of why some resonate with those theories—while others in similar circumstances do not—retreads familiar ground. Conspiracy theories are, once again, “an intangible poison infecting many millions of minds.” The contagion metaphor of conspiracy theories is a framing so familiar in the study of radically different beliefs that it is, by this point, almos…
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…sment.” The difference is that Haffner believes the church must accept and welcome queer youth. Exodus Youth wants to help pastors and churches provide resources to keep young people from identifying as gay. Haffner cites a study that showed that 6 out of 10 mainline churches support LGBT rights. While this is an encouraging sign, her article neglects to mention that within Christianity, conservative and nondenominational megachurches increasingly…
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…ge off the table, LGBT politics in Utah does not “advocate domesticity and promote consumption under the name of equality politics.” It engenders grassroots, cross-party dialogue that takes into consideration the needs of various households—single, gay, straight, and other. This community-based politicking was embodied by the 2009 “Common Ground Initiative” (CGI) formulated by Equality Utah. Although the CGI is no longer Equality Utah’s stated mis…
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