Religion Dispatches
…ts makes me tremble. When I consider Darwin, how cats in a town affect the number of flowers, how your face looks as you search out each puddle on your way to school and learn to pull the lip of one sock over so it enfolds the other, then I wonder what it is that I am creating and tremble at the radiance which for a moment passes through you, like light through water making rainbows on a mere piece of paper. Ann Lynn is trained as a psychiatric so…
Read More…Ya think??? Trouble is, this stuff really isn’t funny. In point of fact, a number of official Catholic statements on sexuality—it’s invariably sexuality and gender they’re riled up about—are downright dangerous. Take, for example, the Ugandan Catholic bishops. As Peter Montgomery reported in RD this week, they joined recently with Anglican and Orthodox bishops “to speed-up the process of enacting the Anti-Homosexuality Law.” This is the bill which…
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…rasteh described in his two books may be an experience common to a growing number of Americans. As the surveys suggest, this process of growing beyond one’s inherited religious tradition has become far more prevalent, sometimes spanning generations. Referred to as the “Nones,” these are people who identify themselves as unaffiliated with any kind of organized religion and are happy to be so. However, this does not mean that Nones have no interest…
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…dst dinosaurs. Bible institutes and Christian colleges continue to grow in number and size, with at least some of them offering degrees in biology and science education in creation-friendly environments. Most of this activity occurs within the nation’s conservative Christian subculture largely invisible to those outside it. When creationists reach beyond the church to challenge the teaching of evolution in public schools—as they have in Kansas, Pe…
Read More…by Orthodox Church officials, was backed by diplomats and activists from a number of European countries. European Parliament acting head Alexandra Attalides said the Parliament stood at the forefront of campaigns for human rights. “A country cannot be European unless there are equal rights for all. Today we are proud,” she said. Political party representatives voiced support for civil partnership, with organisers noting that human rights could not…
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…rtray a group of Jewish elders trying to determine how they will explain a number of events, all having to do with the State of Israel, to a young daughter; every line begins with the words “tell her.” The culmination is a bloody, vitriolic speech, defending the Gaza war of this past winter. The intended effect is clearly alienation from the speaker: Churchill has allowed the play to be distributed freely, so long as money is gathered at performan…
Read More…bly suggest that both sides in this debate need to remember the very small number of women who in real life will be involved in this dilemma, compared to the impact on a very large number of women who will be denied their “health” if the reform bill does not pass.” This relies on a disingenuous interpretation of statistics from the Guttmacher Institute, which that organization has been decrying for a good week now. Many more women would be affecte…
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…from then-US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld himself. Why place this at number ten? Well, for a man who used to pal around with génocidaires and publicly lobbied on Mobutu’s behalf, calling for the assassination of a leftist dictator is pretty standard. Robertson’s mistake was doing it on TV in front of an audience of millions. In addition, his call for the US to assassinate Chavez is one of the remarks that public pressure eventually forced Ro…
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…y, as many of the dioceses in the United States become uninsurable and the number of Catholic churches dwindles. As membership shrinks, the number of ordinations decreases, and the coffers dry up, perhaps the Vatican and its leadership will be forced to look at its decrepit, hierarchical structure, and fix it. I doubt it, however. Like the spider who crawled across Pope Benedict’s robes this weekend in Prague, everyone except the Pope can see the…
Read More…ted partners of U.S. citizens who are gay or lesbian, is compiling a large number of religious leaders, organizations, and denominations, to sign on to a letter supporting the legislation. As I reported last year, UAFA would correct a glaring inequality in our current immigration law: there are 36,000 bi-national couples in the United States—same-sex couples in which one is a US citizen and the other faces possible deportation if a partner or spo…
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