Religion Dispatches
…when the gay ban disappeared. Would-be harassers realized women were now “free to report assaults without fear that they would be accused of and subsequently discharged for being a lesbian.” In the U.S. military, the Department of Veterans Affairs reported in 2000 that “55 percent of women experienced sexual harassment in the military. And a 2005 study estimates that more than half of women in the reserves and National Guard suffered sexual assau…
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…itism, Islamophobia, (anti-)Zionism, and Israel (not to mention democracy, free speech, and open dialogue). These debates would be more fruitful if informed by the way scholars of religion approach their subject matter. As a starting point I’ve found Harvard Divinity School’s Religious Literacy Project and its four principles (which also happen to be guiding principles of RD) to be helpful in the classroom: Devotional religious expression is disti…
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…istianity function so closely with some of the core American ideals around free-market capitalism, wealth and consumerism. Prosperity gospel, for instance, only makes logical sense in a system of free-market capitalism. Those core American ideals have come under assault in very public ways when measured against the yardstick of liberation theology and faith-based social justice initiatives. By Tuesday afternoon, August 29, news sources were report…
Read More…data: 50 percent of white evangelicals say they believe capitalism and the free market are at odds with Christian values. According to the survey, white evangelicals are more likely to say the free market and Christian values are at odds than black Protestants, mainline Protestants, Catholics, and religiously unaffiliated Americans. On first glance that seems difficult to accept given white evangelicals’ overwhelming electoral support for the Repu…
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…rd where human rights are concerned, especially those rights regarding the free exercise of religious belief. Item Two: Beginning on Friday evening, 8/8/08, the same government in Beijing began hosting the 2008 Olympic Games, giving explicit voice to the implicit religious sentiments of those Games. Item Three: The most expensive ticket, and the hardest one to come by at the Modern Olympics, is a ticket to the Opening Ceremonies, where precisely n…
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…lack theology, making Judaism a logical model for crafting a new faith for free people. But Jesus, too, was important in black faith, and most of the Jewish-inspired denominations that sprang up did not renounce him. Instead, they claimed white Jews were imposters to the faith who had misunderstood Christ’s significance. Broadly speaking, these black “messianic” groups held beliefs that resemble elements of Seventh Day Adventism and Jews for Jesus…
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…concentrate on—wait for it—sex and marriage-related issues and “religious freedom,” which is also focused on the pelvic zone. And as if to prove how tone-deaf they are, on Sunday the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops kicked off its fourth annual “Fortnight for Freedom” religious liberty extravaganza, which runs through July 4. Surprisingly (for an event that marries an archaic English expression to a vague nod to American Independence and Catho…
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…eedom that made democracy possible are the root of what makes reproductive freedom possible today. The rollback of religious freedom that the sponsors of the Virginia Statute warned us about is well underway. We can see it in the recent and likely future decisions of the Supreme Court, the damage done by the Trump administration, and in the theocratic agenda of the Christian Right, a movement that continues to grow in political power. But their da…
Read More…he listserv (which, with a brilliant lack of self-awareness, is called the Freedom Community): This kind of anti-Israel sentiment is so fringe it’s support by CAP is outrageous, but at least it is out in the open now — as is their goal – clearly applauded by revolting allies like the pro-HAMAS and anti-Zionist/One State Solution advocate Ali Abunumiah and those who accuse pro-Israel Americans of having ”dual loyalties” or being ”Israel-Firsters” –…
Read More…the Republic included “as he died to make men holy let us die to make men free,” when the more common version these days calls on us to “live to make men free.” Yet even with regard to the way military force has been central to what it means to be American, the president presented a new narrative, asserting that “peace and lasting security do not mean we are in a state of perpetual war.” One of the most important ways in which the tea party and…
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