Religion Dispatches
…when the gay ban disappeared. Would-be harassers realized women were now “free to report assaults without fear that they would be accused of and subsequently discharged for being a lesbian.” In the U.S. military, the Department of Veterans Affairs reported in 2000 that “55 percent of women experienced sexual harassment in the military. And a 2005 study estimates that more than half of women in the reserves and National Guard suffered sexual assau…
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…one another to task. But we would expect all of us (including Wiesel!) to betray our better selves on a regular basis. For those of us who are humanists or social scientists, we might research how such betrayals—or, for those of us who love jargon, “dialectical reversals”—occur as a matter of course when we live out our commitments among people who disagree with us. And all of us might come to realize that our acts of solidarity, whether with som…
Read More…data: 50 percent of white evangelicals say they believe capitalism and the free market are at odds with Christian values. According to the survey, white evangelicals are more likely to say the free market and Christian values are at odds than black Protestants, mainline Protestants, Catholics, and religiously unaffiliated Americans. On first glance that seems difficult to accept given white evangelicals’ overwhelming electoral support for the Repu…
Read More…at remain) has been attacked or threatened, is evidence of the strong ties between Christian and Muslim in this country. Seeing the immensely polite attitude of people searching those coming into Tahrir. The free teas that were spreading all around Tahrir, no doubt paid for through the charitable support of someone in the crowd, or donated by the tea-shop owner – its just another part of the Egypt I have always known. But the Egypt I have known wo…
Read More…adventures of Eve and Adam and Cain and Abel and Abraham,” she writes. Because she doesn’t really understand evolution, and because she finds the Biblical account so much more compelling, Heffernan opts for creationism. The outrage from science-minded writers isn’t surprising. What’s unfortunate is that there hasn’t been a greater backlash from religious folks. Heffernan’s ideas about science may be ignorant, but the way she talks about religion…
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…ps and Hitching Post, LLC cannot perform [same-sex wedding] ceremonies because they believe God created marriage to be a sacred covenant between one man and one woman. The Knapps also pledged to follow this belief in their ordination vows.” Their denomination, the Foursquare Gospel church, doesn’t actually specify that ministers cannot preside over same-sex weddings in the ordination vows. The denomination is opposed to same-sex marriage and what…
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…sleeps in the street under a bridge and is here at 7:30 in the morning because he wants to do something for people. He’s got a passionate desire to give something, because he’s realized that the experience of giving changes him. But there’s also this alienated idea that you can please God by doing good deeds. Crossing yourself, saying the prayers, refusing to eat meat, are like being nice to a poor person. In other words, instead of having relatio…
Read More…eology of hate.” Through it all, the McCain campaign apparently saw more pluses than minuses in keeping the Hagee endorsement. The break came only when a Hagee sermon appeared that called Hitler an agent of God, hunting down Jews to force them to go where God wants them: the land of Israel. According to the New York Times, “Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, the country’s largest branch of Judaism, said that while he did…
Read More…se of Religion” that people “sometimes fear the Bible will be destroyed by freedom of thought and freedom of speech. Let it perish if such be the case. Truth cannot fear the light, nor are men so mad as to forsake a well of living water. All the free thinking in the world could not destroy the Illiad; how much less the truths of the Bible, which … has already endured the greatest abuse at the hands of its friends, who make it an idol, and would ha…
Read More…havior and unusual but largely harmless traditions is blurred. In the most extreme examples, shining a spotlight on a dangerous religious movement, such as that of Jim Jones or Heaven’s Gate, is not only newsworthy, but a call to give protection and a voice to those who have none. So feel free to serve douse those Cheerios in soy milk or top your pizza with soysage so long as we keep in mind that sloppy reporting doesn’t only damage the credibilit…
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