Religion Dispatches
…s and coverage that oppose what most American women understand to be their best interests. In this difficult position, the best Ann Romney could do was emphasize the relational model to which political wives are so often tethered. I remember that Michelle Obama did it in 2008, describing the moment when Barack drove his baby daughter home from the hospital, so we women would see him as someone to trust. It’s a model that leads women to that close,…
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…on of performance and preaching. How would you characterize it? KL: At his best, Reverend Billy is the love child of Billy Graham and Allen Ginsberg. I think he, like many American activists, is invested in a sort of self-promoting iconoclasm in order to bring about greater equality. Like many American preachers, he invents a new consensus in his speech in order to develop the broadest base. And, like many in the avant-garde, he suggests his perso…
Read More…or his efforts to pay off and arrange a lobbying job for Doug Hampton, his best friend and aide whose wife he’d had an affair with — said “there are consequences to sin.” He’s nonetheless confident that “God has forgiven me, and so has my wife.” The announcement comes as the Senate Ethics Committee ramps up its investigation, even though the Justice Department concluded its probe without pressing charges. Sin: Ensign had an affair with his best fr…
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…nre of first-hand accounts of near-death journeys to a supernatural realm. Best-selling books including Proof of Heaven, The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven, and Heaven Is For Real share two elements, which are both captured in this trailer for the 2014 film adaptation of Heaven Is For Real : First, these accounts of near-death experiences emphasize how close the person was to biological death. It was a “miracle” that young Colton even survived, jus…
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…cal ties at work, I wanted to better understand the dynamics causing large numbers of people to adopt the interests of CWA and other Christian Right groups even when those ideas don’t necessarily have clear factual backing. I felt that a thoroughgoing treatment of how public persuasion and belief formation happens had been mostly ignored in scholarship, as most scholars simply see finite groups with finite beliefs, rather than asking critical ques…
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…orse still, the reprehensible actions of the few target and often kill the best people. Ambassador Christopher Stevens was well liked in Libya, and a veteran of postings across the Middle East. He was the kind of person the American government is lucky to have on its side. (I remember, some years back, that a famous Muslim filmmaker, who had made the first big-budget movie about the Prophet Muhammad, was killed by al-Qaeda in one of its typical in…
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…divorce.” What sorts of beliefs and fears compelled her to try to make the best of what she knew was a terrible situation? How did she perceive what was supposed to be a loving, empowering religion as one that did not allow her to admit or correct mistakes? Everybody—including my dad’s mom, who my mother was close to at the time—told her, “Don’t do this. Don’t marry him.” And Mom said, “No, I’m marrying him.” I think as much as anything she was as…
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…onsibly peddles the falsehoods that abortion providers try to maximize the number of procedures they perform in order to profit, and that fetuses feel pain. The anti-choice activist Carol Everett claims she once worked for an abortion provider that aimed to perform three to five abortions on 13-18 year old girls so they would be accustomed to using abortion as a birth control method into adulthood. Dr. Laube called these claims “pure nonsense,” “p…
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…ultural and interfaith relationships. But the real truth of it is that the best way to “reach” Muslims (to crib my old evangelical language) is to clean up our own house. Conservative Christianity (that is directly linked with conservative politics) has been so incredibly damaging to the work of peace and justice. I want followers of Christ to call out the fear and hatred of immigrants and refugees being promoted by Christians and to do it publicl…
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…ly ugly and offered with a sneer. The irony is that the candidates who are best at affect-masking this year (Rubio and Kasich) are falling behind. They seem moderate, which would make them palatable in November. But the Republican rank and file—including a plurality of right-wing evangelicals—don’t want politicians who seem moderate. They want the masks off and the lights on; they want double the fury, double the contempt, double the fear. Trump’s…
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