Religion Dispatches
…Proposition 187. “We believe that immigration reform is the civil rights struggle of our time. It is a struggle that affects all of us with its impact on the economic, social and cultural fabric of our society.” I wonder if they could have anticipated the hatred and backlash against immigrants that would be embodied by SB1070. Tales abound in print, on radio, online, and television media of Latinos/as afraid to be out on the streets. There have be…
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…is cracking. “What I would like to see is actually Christian honest people running the shop,” said Sinead O’Connor, speaking on CNN about her faith as a Catholic woman and the need for governmental change in the Church. “It seems to me that the Vatican don’t actually believe in God at all. They’re certainly not acting like they believe in a God that watches. A Christian is supposed to ask ‘What would Jesus do?’ and try to do it. Would Jesus have c…
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…remain trapped in the same old patterns of thought that seek to divide the world into black and white, true and false, right and wrong, without paying sufficient attention to how muddled reality—and what counts as sacred—is for most of us. And, even more frightening to some, is that God really is irrelevant in the religious equation for a growing number of people. An atheist soccer fan can be religious, just as an evangelical Protestant soccer fan…
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…that hint at a longer story. Still, it can be useful to paint some broad brushstrokes, to understand a certain demographic, and make sense of the world in which we live and worship. It can help us understand who we are as people, and how to be church. That is an old question, though, and one we’ve needed to ask ourselves for years. It’s not that the answer has changed so much as that we still haven’t figured it out, because it is too hard or too…
Read More…d by homosexual activists like Christopher Barron.” Which is not entirely true—the “conservative movement” is filled with gays and lesbians like Ken Mehlman, who led the Republican National Committee, and author and radio host Tammy Bruce. Gay and lesbian people, closeted or not, have long been a part of the “conservative movement.” What Farah does not like is that right now, these people are speaking up. They are no longer being silent about who…
Read More…under federal discrimination statutes. On the demagoguery side of the spectrum comes Buddy Smith, Executive Vice President of the American Family Association who asserted that kids can condemn homosexuality without being a bully: ”Activist adults essentially are saying that American parents who want their kids to avoid high risk homosexual sex acts and remain abstinent until traditional marriage, are harming kids. This is preposterous, and local p…
Read More…ls. I will sell them in the market, by Allah,” Shekau said, according to a CNN translation. “There is a market for selling humans. Allah says I should sell. He commands me to sell. I will sell women.” It is not an empty threat. Earlier this year, in Yobe state, 16 girls were abducted and married off. There have been numerous reports of rape, and escapees have related being used as “baby factories.” The Nigerian government claims to be handling the…
Read More…. So Muslims are off the hook? Absolutely not. As I argued this weekend on CNN (here’s the translation in Spanish), it is important to explain why ISIS is at war with the Muslim world and the West, as well as Islam itself—as most Muslims understand (ISIS calls the French “pagans,” and often uses the same term to describe mosques—from their persepctive, we are all the enemy, and we all deserve to die.) Many Muslims feel that ISIS is not Islamic ins…
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…to young Muslims activists as they used to be. Two of their most famous recruits, notorious around the world for beheading ISIS captives, have themselves been killed by target strikes. The number of young people volunteering to join the ISIS forces have dwindled, and scores, perhaps hundreds, have been trying to return home, weary of being used as cannon fodder. ISIS, it appears, is on a downward slide. But perhaps this is precisely what explains…
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…d to sit down with Vladimir Putin to discuss the occupation of Ukraine, or Russian support for the brutal Assad regime, then certainly Carson won’t mind sitting across from some American Muslims and asking them to prove their loyalty. Given that we are several million, however, it wouldn’t make sense for him to interrogate every single one of us. So I’ve suggested some names, if only to get him started. If Carson’s willing to address these five fo…
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