Religion Dispatches
…made a video, imploring Taylor to return the funds. Scandals have become business as usual with Bishop Long and New Birth church. These stories will continue in part because of the recent fail of Senator Grassley’s investigation of the prosperity purveyors. Grassley turned a serious investigation of fiscal malfeasance that could have suggested real changes in laws into a pat on the back for prosperity preachers. The Grassley investigation has be…
Read More…“There’s a belief here that Wall Street is a fixed casino and it’s back in business, and we’re left holding the bag,” said Mr. Cordray, whose office overlooks East Broad. “It’s important for us to show we’ll go after a company that does wrong.” Mr. Cordray in two years in office has demonstrated a willingness to sue early and often, filing lawsuits against global financial houses, rating agencies, subprime lenders and foreclosure scammers. He has…
Read More…ector of issue analysis — is not about to be outdone in the fear-mongering business: Permits should not be granted to build even one more mosque in the United States of America, let alone the monstrosity planned for Ground Zero. This is for one simple reason: each Islamic mosque is dedicated to the overthrow of the American government. […] Because of this subversive ideology, Muslims cannot claim religious freedom protections under the First Amend…
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…aliban” is either a wise political move or useful for understanding either American fundamentalism or the Taliban itself. But neither that, nor Grayson’s clumsy use of “Taliban Dan” should obscure the fact that Webster has affiliated himself with an organization Joyce describes in her book as: the source of a deeply influential set of Christian teachings among homeschoolers . . . a $63-million per year business that enumerates a series of “nonopti…
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…ck, which he called “powerful and life-changing.” (Antoine, who is African American, would not tell me who he was voting for but said he could not vote for a candidate who favored abortion rights.) IHOP “stirs young people,” Antoine told me, and “keeps them continuously alert about the end-times. So they can’t be distracted because they’re continuously being bombarded by the preaching of the end-times so it’s continuously on their heart and their…
Read More…about the Clarion Fund and its films last year, Paul Barrett, an editor at Business Week and author of American Islam: The Struggle for the Soul of a Religion, told me, “Saying that organizations like CAIR and ISNA aim to institute Islamic religious law in the United States is similar to saying that Jewish or Catholic religious organizations aim to institute rabbinic or church law in the U.S. The notion that they are threat to the republic, a fift…
Read More…evangelical myself, I resent Christianity being used simply to help Reed’s business.” Irvin’s dart went straight to the heart of the matter. While grassroots organizing has been the key to lifting evangelicals to power in the GOP, the movement’s political model has mostly mirrored the traditional hierarchy of churches, with trusted leaders setting the tone and issuing marching orders to their foot soldiers. What if the generals—the Reeds and James…
Read More…prohibitive regulations on abortion clinics designed to drive them out of business. He opposed a bill that stated that contraception is not abortion. Cuccinelli’s culture war coup de grace, though, was this gem: “My view is that homosexual acts, not homosexuality, but homosexual acts are wrong. They’re intrinsically wrong. And I think in a natural law based country it’s appropriate to have policies that reflect that. … They don’t comport with nat…
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…ducted by USA Today indicate this group is on the rise, with 15 percent of Americans who do not identify with any religion. As with all statistics the answers may be contingent on how the questions are framed. For example, this current survey indicated that 51 percent of those who listed “none” for their religion still believe in God or a higher power. But these statistics do indicate that people no longer feel the social pressure of previous gene…
Read More…ying that “it really smacks of witch-hunts and thought-police. It’s not my business to ‘renounce.’” And Ben-Ami added his own critique of the book, saying that “this notion that somehow Jews control this country, they control our foreign policy, that there is some diabolical conspiracy behind the scenes, this is when you cross that line. I believe that the analysis in the Walt and [John] Mearsheimer book and article crossed that line, but this do…
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