Religion Dispatches
…lived partially as Jews, and had some status in the Jewish community. But today’s non-Jewish Jews aren’t identifying as such because they live in Jewish enclaves, but because identifying as “Jewish” has become an asset and fashionable; it’s no longer a liability. The impact this community will have on the Jewish community remains to be seen. *Read more from “Pew and the Jews: ‘So What?’”, an RD special feature on the Pew survey. Like this story?…
Read More…ng to save?” Kumrits asked his friend. “Man, he sounded just like we sound today.” But if you ask them what they are, they really don’t know. And they’re fine with that. They don’t know where they will be spiritually in a year, but they don’t seem very much preoccupied by it. Today, their spirituality comes from the Tao Te Ching. They are dedicated to shedding their possessions. Kumrits lives year round in a camper. The two men are constantly chal…
Read More…of anti-Semitism and white supremacy, no matter where you are in the world today). Unlike these symbols that are based in reality, however, a thoughtful investigation into the “black mass” would have revealed that this is actually a symbol in search of a reality. Boston University professor David Frankfurter, in his award-winning 2006 book Evil Incarnate: Rumors of Demonic Conspiracy and Satanic Abuse in History, argues that, when we apply the mos…
Read More
…ster will eventually come to the conclusion that engagement with believers today has to be both digital and mobile. Thus, I wasn’t surprised to read about an Anglican priest in Nova Scotia who offered a “grace for gadgets” service over Labor Day weekend during which the faithful had to opportunity to have their smartphones, laptops, and other mobile electronic devices blessed. In a similar vein, earlier this year, a Methodist church in Texas began…
Read More…elson is doing his best to spread the message through Israel HaYom (Israel Today), a free tabloid that is the country’s must-read news outlet. Adelson told reporters at the Jerusalem gathering that he does not dictate the newspaper’s coverage or editorials, but that both reflect his point of view and that of his close friend, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In a nation of news junkies, Israel HaYom is trying to steer public opinion to the right…
Read More
…legal traditions, Islamic or otherwise, discussed consent in the way we do today. In the past, she said, “we don’t hear about consent in marriage, or in relationships where sex is lawful. What we do hear and read about is that anyone, slave or free, who is harmed, can take that case to a judge. A woman could go to a court and say her husband hit her, bruised her—she could get compensation.” In the Prophetic period, consent was often passive: Expec…
Read More…d-be Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, as noted in RD, has said her work in promoting school choice is fueled by her desire to “confront the culture in which we live today to help advance God’s Kingdom.” Allowing public education funding to go to religious schools is, according to some, the foundational issue of the Christian right. But it’s not just within the Trump administration where the Christian right will likely hold sway. The Christian righ…
Read More
…c partisan José de León Toral. (Incidentally, de León Toral is still being promoted to join the altar boy, José Sánchez del Rio, in the Church’s altars. Pope Benedict XVI beatified Sánchez in 2005, while Pope John Paul II had already canonized 27 cristero martyrs in May 2000, two months before Catholic right candidate Vicente Fox ousted the Partido Revolucionario Institucional from the presidency.) In the bigger picture, then, For Greater Glory’s d…
Read More…nt guarantees equal protection to fertilized eggs. At his press conference today, Santorum alluded to reproduction and procreation by praising the family as “the moral enterprise that is America,” and by specifically thanking the 19 Kids and Counting Duggars for campaigning for him. It might have sounded like a standard political homage to wholesome family life, but to anyone who knows Santorum’s views, it was an homage to uber-fertility. As Kathr…
Read More…. evangelicals must take responsibility for David’s blood!” In a statement today, Political Research Associates condemned the murder and demanded an end to “the export of homophobia to Uganda by American conservatives.” “Kato’s murder is a heavy blow to the international human rights community,” said Rev. Kapya Kaoma, the director of PRA’s Project on Religion and Sexuality. “Those U.S conservatives who have lit the brushfire of homophobia in Afric…
Read More