Religion Dispatches
…mocracy” as the work of the 20th century, and that task continues unabated today. He warned that there was only one thing that really threatened to undo it: party-thinking. But these savage, wolfish parties alarm me. Owning no law but their own, more and more combative, less and less tolerant of the idea of ensemble and of equal brotherhood, the perfect equality of the States, the ever-overarching American ideas, it behooves you to convey yoursel…
Read More
…t has the full range of human emotions, that confronts us with our brokenness, but not so that we despair. That’s the good news of Christianity for me. It’s not that you can be happy and whole, but rather that life is crap and you don’t know the answers. It’s good news to be freed from the oppression that there’s something that’s going to make it all better. When you’re free from that and begin to work through your brokenness and suffering with a…
Read More…sh anti-gay law that would criminalizeeven the dissemination of ideas that promote LGBT equality. Radio Free Europe reports: Kyrgyzstan’s parliament has approved a draft law that bans “propaganda of same-sex relations” in the first reading. Lawmaker Kurmanbek Dyikanbaev told RFE/RL on October 15 that 79 deputies voted for the legislation, while seven voted against it. The law has to pass the parliament’s approval in two more readings and then be s…
Read More
…ers, we, the complicit beneficiaries of a decades-old system, get off scot free—much like the absent male partner of the adulterous woman dragged before Jesus for punishment. While declaring the immigration reform of 1986 a failure, we posthumously praise the beneficiaries of that amnesty for dying in military service in Iraq. While demanding stricter border security, we forget that such measures have grossly inflated the number of undocumented im…
Read More
…t thin bodies, light or fair-skinned, long brown or blond hair, and a face free of scars and acne, with a small nose, full lips, and clear eyes. As one student put it, “that girl looks healthy… she is so hot!” As for the ideal media male, he is tall, muscular, usually white, blue eyes, short hair, clean-shaven, and free of blemishes—healthy-looking. With these ideals in mind, is it any wonder that my high school students made the choices they did?…
Read More
…and plentiful, and the collapse of the licensing laws insured a degree of free speech hitherto unknown in the British Isles. The World Turned Upside Down would prove so enduring that it has been an English folk ballad for more than 350 years. The song’s opening verse, “Holy-dayes are despis’d, new fashions are devis’d. /Old Christmas is kicked out of Town” remains pertinent. It seems that a supposed “War on Christmas,” whether real or imagined, h…
Read More
…ht are the ultimate camp followers. They’re latching onto government for a free ride while decrying it. They want to overthrow the present order from the inside in the name of God. The result is that there are two kinds of far-right evangelicals: the ones who make a public show of their animosity toward the president, accusing him of not being an American citizen, for example. They even say Obama has a secret plan to kill old people within his hea…
Read More…onfusion now dogs the debate over employers’ First Amendment rights to the free exercise of religion and the new insurance mandates under the Affordable Care Act, which include birth control. The argument that seems to be winning in court is that employers who oppose the use of birth control for religious reasons should not have to provide it to their workers. Only in a world in which labor has been alienated from production, however, can such an…
Read More…mmensely polite attitude of people searching those coming into Tahrir. The free teas that were spreading all around Tahrir, no doubt paid for through the charitable support of someone in the crowd, or donated by the tea-shop owner – its just another part of the Egypt I have always known. But the Egypt I have known would never have seen people feeling free to voice their criticisms of the president so strongly or openly – that type of attitude cert…
Read More
…th leftist intellectuals who reject it. Perhaps another generation will be free enough to criticize Israel; I cannot. [Italics added.] Was this a betrayal of his other broadly humanist commitments? Absolutely. There is no reason why critics should not continue to take Wiesel to task for what he said about Palestinians, or why they should not point out how especially unprepared Wiesel was for the recent growth of Israeli racism. But if we have anyt…
Read More