Religion Dispatches
…lly to a logic that treated the relative ‘Jewishness’ of a teaching as the best test of its truth or falsity.” Marcion, Tertullian, Justin, Origen and Jerome differed on crucial Christological and scriptural questions; still most identified any hint of carnality as “Jewish” and accused their opponents of “Judaizing.” Augustine took the trope even further, arguing in Against Faustus that the Jews were the living exemplar of falsity, “proof to belie…
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…merican political fundamentalism. Sharlet, who has since become one of the best journalists covering American religion today (and a columnist for Religion Dispatches), got a remarkable scoop some years back. An acquaintance invited him into Ivanwald, the community in Arlington, Virginia, that exposed him to a network of which few outsiders are aware. He calls it “The Family,” though it goes by several names; some incorporated, others not. Beginnin…
Read More…movement, with concerns about the objectivity of the media as well as the best way to solve the problems. Rather, many evangelicals are concerned that proposed solutions to global warming would actually hurt the poor.” Still, millions of Christians—no matter how you slice it, Catholic or Protestant, evangelical or not—want to see their faith community become more active in environmental stewardship. There is a void in Christian leadership on envi…
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…ver I went—in my backpack to school, biking through my neighborhood. At my best friend’s house, we marched around his yard and the woods behind his house pretending we were preachers prophesying the end of the world. It gave me a thrilling sense of power to possess this secret knowledge that everyone else was too blind to see. Whether as a prop in playacting or simply toted around my pre-adolescent life, having the white inscrutable Bible close at…
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…nation in distress and claiming that evangelical Christianity can not only best explain the crisis, but save us from our demise. Is there anything you had to leave out? For a long time I considered writing an addendum about post-purity evangelicals. This is a concept introduced by Abigail Rine who wrote in The Atlantic about the growing number of evangelicals and former evangelicals who’ve been recounting their experiences with sexual purity. Many…
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…Cory Doctorow’s “When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth”—probably the anthology’s best story—it’s a synchronistic series of unconnected acts of terrorism. The most original set-up is in Octavia Butler’s “Speech Sounds,” in which a virus wipes out the human race’s ability to use and comprehend language. Elsewhere the cause of the apocalypse is ambiguous—something best illustrated in Gene Wolfe’s “Mute,” in which two children watch news reports about a mys…
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…voters who voted for Trump as a rough approximation—will assent to, or at best excuse, the claims. In authoritarian communities like the white evangelical one I grew up in, certain sacrosanct “Truths” become markers of in-group identity. Members of these communities build up infrastructure—in this case Christian publishing houses, bookstores, alternative cultural products, Christian schools and curricula, etc.—in order to generate pseudo-intellec…
Read More…ssive,” and says he overlooks the majority of biblical scholars. He’s also particularly peeved by Savage’s description of biblical perspectives of slavery: “If we want to have a debate let’s do it civilly,” he says. “Let’s look at the best scripture scholar. Sam Harris is not one of the best scripture scholars.” I wouldn’t go so far as to say someone who invites you into their home is lacking civility when they quote a writer you don’t like. Check…
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…ns/Simon & Schuster), Freddoso’s book joined Corsi’s on the New York Times best-seller list. As a Political Research Associates’ Right Web profile of Regnery points out, the company, founded by Henry Regnery in 1947 in Chicago, and [i]nitially affiliated with the University of Chicago’s “Great Books” series, … became a leading publisher of old-guard, conservative writers such as Russell Kirk, James Burnham, and William F. Buckley, Jr.“ After being…
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…tary, and national security. That’s the one area where McCain consistently bests his opponent in the polls. It’s only his claim to experience on these issues that are keeping him competitive. That does not mean the voters prefer McCain’s war policies. Since last February, when it became clear that the Arizona senator would be the GOP’s nominee, the pattern has not changed: Even when a comfortable majority of those polled support Obama’s policy — w…
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