Religion Dispatches
…ast, and in one case a supervisor grabbed an employee by the neck, yanking him from his prayers.“ I was shocked when I read this. My first thought was, It’s not just a “traditional drink.“ People who have gone without water all day need to drink as soon as they can. It’s cruel and unhealthy to prevent them. Moreover, the Muslim sunset prayer takes only three or four minutes. It’s hard to believe that a five-to-ten minute break at sunset for plant…
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…of wishful thinking. And that’s why, year after year, we get stories like this: Hip New Churches Sway to a Different Drummer (2004) Evangelicals Open Debate on Widening Policy Questions (2005) Are Young Evangelicals Skewing More Liberal? (2008) It’s Not Your Father’s Christian Right (2008) Young Evangelicals Seek Broader Political Agenda (2008) The Evangelical Divide (2017) ‘God is Going to Have to Forgive Me’: Young Evangelicals Speak Out (2018)…
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…at was then, but this is now; that was Billy Graham’s evangelical vision, while his son, Franklin, has taken a stand with Trump on banning Muslims. And Trump’s endorsement by Paul Ryan this week indicates that, all in all, he and the House Republicans will be just another brick in Trump’s wall. Ryan’s resurrection of compassionate conservatism and the elder Graham’s more capacious visions for evangelical embrace of others have fallen, like George…
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…he No Enemies On The Right viewpoint among religious celebrities. Wallis achieved his considerable celebrity by insisting that God is neither a Democrat nor or a Republican, which is a true but rather trifling thing to say and which obscures the fact that God stands so strongly on the side of the poor that those who oppress God’s poor people make themselves into God’s enemies. The God of the Hebrew prophets and the God of Jesus Christ is very much…
Read More…and commentary. I went to the website for the product later on and found this: “Warning! This site contains humor, parody, political satire, and a few other forms of speech enjoyed by Americans thanks to the First Amendment. If you’re cool with that…. ENTER HERE” leading to their main site. Followed by “If political satire and humor are not your thing or if you just need more fiber in your diet, pick your exit: “EXIT LEFT” “EXIT RIGHT.” Now, shou…
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…09, living in the beach house of Christian Right activist and businessman Philip Zodhiates, whose daughter Victoria Hyden works as an administrative assistant at Liberty Law School. Students at Liberty Law School tell RD that in the required Foundations of Law class in the fall of 2008, taught by Miller’s attorneys Mat Staver and Rena Lindevaldsen, they were repeatedly instructed that when faced with a conflict between “God’s law” and “man’s law,”…
Read More…tain. Indian officials have called for a media blackout of the event. Meanwhile, his own daughter has joined the list of folks condemning the event. She called his church a “cult” that uses “mental violence.” Not to be left out in denouncing things, Angelina Jolie also condemned the plan. President Obama called it a “recruitment bonanza” for radical Islamic groups. “Recruitment bonanza” sounds more like a white-collar job fair than an act of Islam…
Read More…exual activity outside of marriage.” The CLS requires members and those wishing to hold leadership positions in the club to be professing Christians and to disavow “unrepentant participation in or advocacy of a sexually immoral lifestyle.” To gain official club status, the group requested an exemption from the school’s anti-discrimination policy, which the school denied, thus denying CLS official student organization status. In 2010, though, the U…
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…audience at risk of being deluded about the reality of fetal development. This was not graphic signage in a public march (where it remains, I believe, inappropriate to this day) but a briefing about a core, contested issue: Is the unborn child one of us? Human? Our brother or sister? Jack Willke joined the board of National Right to Life in 1973 and served on it until his retirement in 2012. He was president of that organization from 1980 to 1991….
Read More…rs. Actually he shows none at all. What, then, is going on here? What is behind this weird attack? Here are two possibilities. 1. Jordan read a phrase in my valedictory column that pricked his pent-up frustration with journalism and let loose a screed in which I and apparently every journalist he has dealt with were amalgamated into a single lump. 2. His real objection is not to the way I have framed the debate about homosexuality and same-sex mar…
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