Religion Dispatches
…Peter…[Obama’s election] is a great step for humanity, a sign that in the United States the issue of race and the problem of discrimination have been overcome…The Church has also made impressive advances…[The election of a black pope] is certainly possible. Thanks to the wisdom of the cardinals, that could happen at the next conclave. Is Archbishop Gregory on to something? Back in 2005, during the last conclave, there was quite a buzz about the p…
Read More
…ment were the major bodies promoting a tradition of moderate reform in the United States (he readily acknowledges minority groups and exceptional individuals outside this tradition who sought to incorporate women, blacks, Jews, etc. into the consensus). Thus, despite Darwinism, the rise of the social sciences, and an advancing secular culture, something like a coalition once existed between the major Protestant denominations—Methodist, Presbyteria…
Read More…in Salman, who, according to the CIA, ordered the murder of Khashoggi. The United States should be doing everything it can to distance itself from Salman and his autocratic Saudi regime, not get him off the hook—especially not through a deal that amounts to nothing more than human trafficking. In a 2017 interview with Fethullah Gulen for Religion Dispatches, I observed that he appeared to be what he said he was, a spiritual leader for a movement o…
Read More
…two very different religious cultures, the United States and Britain. The United States remains a proudly religious nation, while Britain is significantly more modest in its observance and public expression of religion. This much is bothersome as a wide range of culture warriors, from those who insist that this is a “Christian Nation” to those who believe that religion must be absolutely separate from politics, might use Fish to insist that their…
Read More
…India, but raised in America. The great advantage for us growing up in the United States was the ability to develop our own identity. I was brought up an Indian Muslim. There were so few of us Indians in the U.S. then that if you saw a woman in a sari on the other end of the shopping mall, you went running over to introduce yourself and, a day or two later, your whole families were having tandoori chicken picnics together. I was about 8 or 9 when…
Read More…t a history that he believed could carry the nation into the future as a reunited whole. His most brilliant rhetoric—the dedication of the Gettysburg Cemetery and his second inaugural address—calls upon Americans to attend to the “unfinished work” of this enterprise, and suggest that those who have died in the Civil War demand nothing less. This entreaty to “finish the work we are in” plays well as the closing act of the semester. It is, if I may…
Read More
…try will no longer be the United States of America but instead will be the United States according to Massachusetts, California, or Vermont.” The posting included a letter written by Lindevaldsen, asking for prayers and help for “Lisa Miller—my client, my friend, my sister in Christ.” The letter, dated September 22, 2008, claimed that Miller “is one of thousands across this nation who have left the homosexual lifestyle through the redeeming power…
Read More
…habi police have warned Eid celebrants not to use illegal fireworks in the United Arab Emirates. Even in the United States, some critics have called for the federal government to regulate fireworks, rather than exempting them from the ambit of the Clean Air Act. The EPA has refused, claiming that “Congress did not intend to require EPA to consider air-quality violations associated with such cultural traditions in regulatory determinations.” Althou…
Read More
…istianity—that fairly describes the majority of religious believers in the United States, for all of their extraordinary diversity. That said, regarding diversity among Christians in the U.S., we have no central ecclesiastical authority to define who and what is and is not Christian. Lacking common definitions can affect our responses to the likes of Clayton Waagner, Scott Roeder, and the Hutaree. For example, liberal Washington Post columnist Eug…
Read More…he doesn’t meet the natural born citizen requirement for president of the United States. Peroutka chimed in: “all the debate that’s been about where he was born doesn’t matter. The point is, who’s your daddy, and your mommy, that’s where your loyalty is. . . . His father — he’s not eligible to be president of the United States.” Afterwards, Lofton provided me with a recording of an interview he did with Titus late last month, in which Titus laid…
Read More