Religion Dispatches
…g, which was derided as part of the “divorce culture:” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npxjuh6UyT4 Tonight, Anna described her husband to People as “someone who had gone down a wrong path and had humbled himself before God and those whom he had offended.” This week, a recap of their television show on their blog discussed how Jim Bob and Michelle “encourage their kids to take a chaperone along on all their dates so they have someone to keep them a…
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…after the university granted official recognition to an LGBT student group comprised of same-sex attracted students committed to lifelong celibacy and “spiritual friendship.” (A pre-existing LGBT student group, which affirms marriage equality, is still not acknowledged officially by Biola.) Clearly, attitudes around LGBTQ inclusion are changing rapidly in the evangelical Christian community but they’re not following a linear path toward progress….
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…they know) that they can’t. And it’s too easy for the public to default to complicity in this circle of untruths. The echoes of Messianic movement-building in the Rand Paul video (and surely in many more to come from candidates of all political stripes) aren’t just clichéd. They’re disconnected from any idea of movement that would put into practice a vision of a new America. In a time when the Republican Party’s strategy has been to obstruct any b…
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…ccept into the Church those gay Christian couples who have made a lifetime commitment to one another? While I have always tried to communicate grace and understanding to people on both sides of the issue, my answer to that question has always been somewhat ambiguous. One reason for that ambiguity was that I felt I could do more good for my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters by serving as a bridge person, encouraging the rest of the Church to rea…
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…nia megachurch, in a brief interview with RD. “You have a common phrase, a common idea.” The church put the hashtag on their website. Pastors pushed it on social media. It appeared in New Life’s local TV commercials. People use social media. Marketers use social media. Spreading the good news is, on some level, a form of marketing. As a simultaneous marker of identity and identity marketer, the hashtag plays a neat trick: it lets you affiliate you…
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…tion is as simple as having recently moved and not yet found the religious community that works for you or your family. It’s complicated in a way that nonlinear dynamics can’t adequately simplify. Now, if we take the language of “extinction” seriously—as we should—as well as the evolutionary theory it seems to presuppose, then a better way to read this data might be to suggest that a number of recognizably religious traditions are undergoing some…
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…020, there have been 146 Covid deaths in Sri Lanka with a disproportionate number coming from the Muslim community; despite making up less than 10% of the population, Muslims account for nearly half of the reported deaths. A Muslim leader in Sri Lanka informed the authors that the number is actually higher, and that 82 Muslims have died, with over 70 cremations. The cremation of the victims was carried out by the state without the approval of the…
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…faithfulness no longer present even among the faithful. They ask about the complex emotional lives of orcas and the communication of dolphins. They gesture towards possible spiritualities and humanisms among chimps and apes, like primatologists Jane Goodall and Frans de Waal, respectively. They ask about forest restoration and global warming and water scarcity. We could most certainly add elephants to this mix, but, in doing so, spiritual or ethic…
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…sticism. Religion News Service regrets the inaccuracy.” Well, okay. Take a number if you’d like to complain about my own writerly inaccuracies. Still, the trouble with the piece goes beyond an inaccurate (though indisputably grabby) headline. Reporter Kimberly Winston is careful to point out that the Pew report authors have noted “that [the religiously unaffiliated] are by no means homogeneous.” She goes on to highlight Pew researchers’ noting of…
Read More…been your favorite comment from a reader, or, one or two of your favorite comments. [RB]: There’ve been a number who have said, “You know, I might actually believe in God now.” And that’s from across the spectrum of every sort of background and non-religious background, every sort of background. That’s been a consistent theme: “You know what? I actually might… I think I might now follow this Jesus.” [WG]: I know you’ve had some stunning negative…
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