Religion Dispatches
…will draw strength from a greater power to defeat its enemy. And, for some bonus Islamophobia — remember all of this? Now, while evangelicals might be more likely to watch Fox News, and more likely to fear shari’ah, if Fox is just repeating, recycling, or regurgitating the Islamophobia — dressed up as “speaking the truth” — that they are already used to hearing, are these evangelical Fox viewers learning something, or is Fox just reinforcing what…
Read More…ctor, the Mmm factor, the stable, loving family factor. It is a calculated bonus that adherents can now speak loftily of making history, but for different reasons, drawing deep from the well of their identities, and not for the first time, both McCain and the right needed a sexual icon. Taking stock of McCain’s marital history and reputation for both unkindness to his wives and restlessness in fidelity, Wypijewski sees his pick of Palin as followi…
Read More…rriage and using contraception, in spite of Vatican teaching that both are sin, noted that people lie even though that’s a sin, too. I had a little retort to that.) There’s a bonus at the end, too: Michael, a traditionalist Catholic, makes the case against beatification of Pope John Paul II. Watch:…
Read MoreBack in 2009, I called Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue promotion the “bus tour of destruction,” noting that her “worldview is not about creation and building,” but about “destruction and dominion.” For dominion to take place, I wrote, “the current order, especially the Democrats’ version of government order, has to fail. What most liberals, Christians included, don’t understand, is that destruction paves the way for a new order ordained by God accordin…
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…n to bless the set, which seemed plagued by literal supernatural forces. A bonus featurette called Faith and Fear packaged with another Conjuring Universe film, The Nun, features Bryan D. Ouelette—an “autocephalous [i.e. self-appointed] eastern Orthodox/western Catholic bishop”—blessing the set of The Devil Made Me Do It before filming began in 2019. Ouellette tells the crew, “The cosmos doesn’t know the difference between fiction and non-fiction….
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…nt for learning about, and working on, all kinds of other things. An added bonus, especially given the present business climate, is that religious studies raises questions of ethics: the foundations, the content, and the commensurability of various ethical systems. It’s an invitation to a meaningful life, and an examined life, and an ethical one. That, truth be told, is why I’m bothering to write this essay in the first place—I actually think havi…
Read More…ire thing; Pierce eviscerates the burgeoning conventional wisdom that Catholics are uniformly as outraged as the Bishops, and that this trumped-up claim of infringement of religious freedom will cost Obama his reelection campaign. And he delves into Catholic theology while he’s at it. Bonus observation: in the most recent ABC News/Washington Post poll, conducted February 1-4, respondents were asked, “How much does it matter to you that a candidate…
Read More…r homophobe Mark Driscoll that has spawned survivors’ blogs. In an article promoted by the church’s Resurgence ministry, Pastor Justin Holcomb says Halloween’s pagan origins have basically been subsumed into harmless fun and can be an opportunity for good family fellowship. But don’t take things too far: “There is a big difference between kids dressing up in cute costumes for candy and Mardi-Gras-like Halloween parties, offensive costumes, and uni…
Read More…lies and operating schools and youth programs, is an employee given a cash bonus for raping and sexually assaulting children?” Kathryn Joyce published an extensive interview with Clohessy at RD in March about efforts by the accused Kansas City priest and the Archdiocese of St. Louis to subpoena confidential records from SNAP. There, she wrote: While the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has denied that there is a national strategy for t…
Read More…h journalist Sarah Wildman about the role of myth vs. reality in Republican presidential candidates’ rhetoric about Iran’s nuclear ambitions and Middle East policy. Plus: just how influential is Sheldon Adelson on Israeli public opinion and bonus trivia about Newt Gingrich. In this clip, we discuss how young Israelis who have little or no memory of Israel pre-Second Intifada, view the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the negative consequences for…
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