Religion Dispatches
…eria was Egypt’s fate, or whether something worse is around the corner. In Today’s Zaman, I argued that Pakistan might be the more operative analogy. With weapons flowing in from Qaddafi’s looted cache, plus an army that according to Wikileaks is “no longer capable of combat,” it’s unclear how said military can secure the country, regain control of the Sinai—a thousand times harder after what happened yesterday—or hold its end of the bargain up wi…
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…gelical, a ministry aimed at helping women heal from religious patriarchy. Today Jennifer is an ordained pastor and leading evangelical feminist voice who is working to dismantle patriarchy in the church, pressing old-school leaders to back policies that advance women’s access to family planning services and advancing a conversation among women of faith who face hurdles to gender equality. The third and final thread follows LGBT students at the ul…
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…. Daniel José Camacho has provided a thorough takedown of the Christianity Today article at Sojourners, noting that “The study’s findings are based on a colorblind lumping of all evangelicals according to belief [which] actually makes it harder to determine and compare what motivated white evangelicals as opposed to evangelicals of color in the 2016 presidential election.” Once again, we have a disingenuous deflection from the very real issue of w…
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…blical requirements, however, he did not view it as inherently immoral. By promoting McDowell, and by extension Rushdoony, Barton promotes a “biblical worldview” in which slavery is in some circumstances acceptable. This worldview (like his discussion of the three-fifths rule, which minimizes the rule’s dehumanization of slaves) diminishes the dehumanization of slavery in general by explicitly arguing that God condones it in certain circumstances….
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…raged these efforts, cited the polls, and at times even commissioned them. Today, when media outlets talk about “evangelicals,” they almost always mean white, politically conservative, born-again Protestants, unless they specify otherwise. The problem is that theological definitions of what makes someone an evangelical vary widely—and tweaking them, Wuthnow shows us, can generate substantial changes in poll results. Nobody actually agrees on the b…
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…Western-style political leaders like the Shah. We live in that world still today, and it is in this sense that we did not need the September 11 attacks to learn that a certain form of neotraditional religiosity was alive and well around the world. What happened in the new century, and what has taken up a great deal of our cultural attention in the past decade, is that certain forms of neo-traditional religion became increasingly violent, very fas…
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…—and I smiled yet again that anyone would imagine the workings of Congress today conforming in any way to what was once taught in 9th grade civics class. For what is “possible” now is not a finely-tuned melding of various good ideas representing different viewpoints on how tackle public policy challenges. Not even close. As no other legislative spectacle demonstrates quite so well as the health care “debate,” the overwhelming driver of policymakin…
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…with their Harvard and Yale pedigrees, keeping the flame of conscience and freedom alive in the face of ignorance and evil. Today the most formidable exponent and curator of the Noble New England legacy is Marilynne Robinson, who writes ceaselessly—and powerfully, let it be said—about the gifts showered upon us by high-minded New England Protestants. As much as I admire and respect Robinson, I fear that the legacy of New England Protestantism is f…
Read More…terms like “Obamosque?” Or this photograph on the Special Guests website? Today Special Guests is also promoting the special guest of Scott Wheeler, a long-time operative of right-wing smear campaigns against Democratic candidates and office-holders. Wheeler is the executive director of the National Republican Trust PAC, which during the 2008 presidential campaign ran incendiary ads attempting to link Obama to terrorism. He’s a veteran of other e…
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…from them. Hence the need for a book like Jones’: the truth can’t set you free until you know what the truth is, and the truth is that white American Christians suck at racial equality. It’s a decent hypothesis and response, but simply knowing better rarely solves issues as complex as white supremacy. Social problems are, well, social, and require us to take into account broader patterns and movements. In this instance, it’s worth looking at anot…
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