Religion Dispatches
…stay, that he did so against his obvious self-interest, in loyalty to the Code, might demonstrate, as Wallace puts it, that McCain is certifiably insane. But we also know… [F]or a proven fact, that he is capable of devotion to something other, more, than his own self-interest. So that when he says the line in speeches now you can feel like maybe it’s not just more candidate bullshit, that this guy it’s maybe the truth. Or maybe both the truth and…
Read More
…o women. There is also a bill in Parliament to revise the current criminal code, which was basically translated from the Dutch criminal code. The latest version apparently does have a sodomy article. So we actually face the criminalization of homosexual acts.” Somoa: Prime Minister Says ‘Christian Country’ Will Never OK Abortion, Same-Sex Marriage Prime Minister Tuilaepa Seilele Malielegaoi said in a radio interview that Samoa is a Christian count…
Read More…stay, that he did so against his obvious self-interest, in loyalty to the Code, might demonstrate, as Wallace puts it, that McCain is certifiably insane. But we also know… [F]or a proven fact, that he is capable of devotion to something other, more, than his own self-interest. So that when he says the line in speeches now you can feel like maybe it’s not just more candidate bullshit, that this guy it’s maybe the truth. Or maybe both the truth and…
Read More
…Over time, the churches that have tried to lighten up the Christian moral code and put forth sort of a kindler, gentler version of Christianity as they see it, have not done well. They have not done well demographically and they haven’t done well financially. Churches that stick to orthodoxy do better over time because in part it’s only those churches that tend to create families that can be of size and carry on the Christian tradition. This hark…
Read More
…uses of civil war. We see this same dynamic unfolding in the United States today, the greatest threat stemming from an ideology widely known as “Christian nationalism.” While identity has, of course, always been central to U.S. politics—particularly on the Right—what’s different today is not only the sharp decline in the White Christian majority, but the widespread belief among those who remain that they are persecuted and that their entire way of…
Read More
…e only relevant for their own time, this would mean none of it is relevant today. It’s only the continuing relevance of the whole Bible, including the curses, that would give modern Israel a claim to ancient roots. The “settler colonialist” critique is that today’s Israel is less an offshoot of ancient history and more a modern project made possible by Western European empires. Without the direct relevance of the Bible, that’s harder to deny. Yet…
Read More
…he more glorious the triumph. Gripping and relevant as the words still are today—this is the paragraph Rep. Raskin quoted at the Summit for Religious Freedom in April 2024—think of what it must have been like to read or hear those words in the bleak winter of December 1776. The American people needed a victory on which to pin the last shreds of their hope. They needed a win. General Washington had Paine’s words read aloud to his soldiers on Christ…
Read More
…ed values. After all, “religious” or “friendly to religion” is essentially code for deference to the conservative Christian values of exclusion and exceptionalism. If Democrats wish to embody their espoused values of inclusion and freedom for all Americans, they ought to ignore the Republican framing of the question entirely and instead find a better story to tell. Christianity remains hegemonic in American discourse, and that’s a key reason Democ…
Read More
…torate, and encouraged them to download his voter mobilization app (the QR code for which was projected onto the Jumbotrons placed around the mall). This may have been the largest voter mobilization event this election season. Illustration in Mario Murillo’s essay, “The Daughter of Lies” Wallnau has been engaged in election mobilization all year, notably on The Courage Tour, which seeks to register and mobilize evangelicals in 19 key counties in n…
Read More
…ion is standard among various factions of the Christian Right, but Wallnau promotes a unique and even more pernicious brand of NAR teachings on gender and sexuality, including the dangerous idea that LGBTQ-identifying kids need to be “delivered” from demons. As noted earlier, “deliverance” among NAR adherents is coded language for exorcism, which is an even more noxious version of the psychologically (and often physically) harmful practice of LGBT…
Read More