Religion Dispatches
As Julie reported yesterday, Florida Democrat Alan Grayson ran an ad against his Republican opponent, Dan Webster, calling him “Taliban Dan,” and pointing to statements he made to the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP) about wives’ submission to their husbands — a topic covered authoritatively by RD contributor Kathryn Joyce in her book, Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement. As Adam Serwer reported this morning at Greg Sarg…
Read More…e a letter thanking the Pope for denouncing the planned Qur’an burnings in Florida. In the wake of recent teen bullying, Christian group Exodus International has decided to pull its support of the “Day of Truth,” an event that encourages school students to “counter the promotion of homosexual behavior.” As of Wednesday, Focus on the Family was standing by the event. As the Major League playoffs get started, Texas Rangers’ Josh Hamilton relies on h…
Read More…egional, rather than worldwide. However, according an article this week in Florida Baptist Witness (hat tip to Jack Krebs at The Panda’s Thumb), when Southwestern Seminary president Paige Patterson, Dembski’s boss, learned of Dembski’s statements, he called him into a meeting with other high-ranking officials. According to the Baptist Witness: At that meeting, Dembski was quick to admit that he was wrong about the flood, Patterson said. “Had I had…
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…e all there. People came from all over the country: Louisiana, California, Florida. We drank and ate and discussed our families, our work and our vacations. We rehashed funny and poignant moments from the trial and board meetings. It was a community effort and just as during the trial, everyone played to their strengths. Kevin Padian, who during the trial testified to the wealth of information about evolution in the fossil record, manned the grill…
Read More…0 meters tall, it will be the largest statue of the Nazarene in the world. Florida’s Qur’an (not) burning pastor wants a New Jersey car dealer to make good on his promise to give him a Hyundai if he didn’t burn the books. A deal is a deal, I guess. The Justice Department has lent its support to the controversial mosque being built in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Meanwhile, the county’s hearing over the mosque’s construction is becoming a poor man’s Sc…
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…instream, as was recently evident with the planned Qur’an burning in North Florida. While the church itself came from the fringe, it certainly resonated throughout American culture due, most likely, to a much larger and more widespread fear and hatred of Muslims. Hate can also bring the religious mainstream out into the convoluted lives of marginal characters who can inflict awful harm on those singled out as objects of hatred; as is the case in t…
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…ty leader Mitch McConnell’s side, a task he takes on proudly with Paul and Florida’s new Senator, Marco Rubio, who is a favorite with social conservatives and signed on with Christian nation mythologist David Barton. DeMint, of course, is one of those Republicans who is very much a Washington insider but disingenuously claims (for Tea Party-cred) to be a renegade fighting it from the outside. But DeMint is a religious right hero first. DeMint thin…
Read More…the planned September 11 Qur’an burning by a fringe pastor in Gainesville, Florida, issuing the following statement yesterday: “A key tenet of our faith is to accord everyone the freedom to worship as they choose. It is regrettable that anyone would regard the burning of any scriptural text as a legitimate form of protest or disagreement.” Which, if I may translate from the culturally understated, modest, and pragmatic institutional language of th…
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…nders (I-Vermont) has championed it in the Senate and Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Florida), defeated last week in his reelection bid, helped Paul push it through the House. But Paul lashed out at Sanders earlier this year, saying he “sold out” for a weaker version of the audit bill, after the version that passed the Senate did not require annual audits.) The Tea Partiers, who have come to see the Federal Reserve as the source of the nation’s economic pro…
Read More…Project — if not the ones in later primary states like South Carolina and Florida — helped Huckabee win the caucuses there, having other presidential hopefuls will certainly dilute the meetings’ apparent endorsement of one candidate over another. One thing is certain though: there won’t be any dilution of the “Judeo-Christian heritage” themes by any of the candidates who want to get the Iowa advantage, even supposedly culture war-averse Haley Bar…
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