Religion Dispatches
…go, so he quickly and rather inexplicably pivots to claiming that the truly important questions he must answer are actually about economic growth. And here you can see the free association at work: economic growth -> free market. Otherwise known as “teach the controversy,” not the science….
Read More
…anguage was religiously abhorrent to huge numbers of Muslims. But the same freedom of speech that permitted The Satanic Verses made it possible for me to attend a thoughtful, and exceptionally relevant, sermon at my local mosque, here in Cincinnati. The preacher discussed how the Prophet Muhammad clarified that ritual observance of religious law did not prove genuine piety. That if our deeds do not equal our words—and our words our deeds—something…
Read More
…from the same evil corrupting our public life. And none of us will win the freedoms we deserve unless we do it together. Liberation is collective. This means that no person is free while their neighbor is shackled, but it also means that we will never break these chains without a universal and reflexive commitment to one another’s thriving. Abortion rights and gender care help people achieve the fullness of who they know they’re called to be. And…
Read More
…rganized religion (religio = binding) in their lives. Protestantism spawns free thought and free radicals (some of them toxic) the way a prism breaks light into uncountable and unclassifiable hues. So while it is definitely not fair to count the great unchurched free radicals of the 19th and 20th centuries as official Protestants, there is no doubt at all that, unofficially, that is just what many were: not just the towering Lincoln but also such…
Read More
…s for same- and opposite-sex wedding cakes burdened not only his religious freedom but also, and even more so, his freedom of expression. In a series of cases stretching over many years, the Supreme Court has upheld the expressive freedom of individuals, especially artists, applying the free-speech guarantee of the First Amendment not only to the written word but also to paintings, films, music, and even public parades. It has likewise protected t…
Read More
…ndment, the current media and political discourse around deplatforming and free speech consistently fails to reckon with an all-important fact: The ways in which speech works in use, in the form of speech acts. I submit that with a fuller understanding of speech and meaning, which takes speech-qua-speech acts into consideration, we see much reason on the side of those who advocate the deplatforming of white supremacist speech and speakers. On the…
Read More…on Twitter that he helped Cardinal Timothy Dolan with his recent paean to free-market capitalism in the Wall Street Journal (note to Mr. Kudlow, there is a reason they call it “ghostwriting”): I worked w/ @CardinalDolan on this @WSJopinion op-ed. It does strike balance. Tell me what you think. #tcot. http://t.co/BvSBxoHrdI — Larry Kudlow (@larry_kudlow) May 23, 2014 Kudlow is a former Reagan Administration official who is well known for his suppo…
Read More
…igious ethic of dominion over the earth that colludes with the libertarian free market enthusiasms of developers who skillfully sell to buyers seeking escape from the Gomorrah of urban America. Nowhere is that more true than in Colorado Springs, which marries an activist grassroots religious conservatism, faith in (and reliance on) the military-industrial complex, and a historic western libertarian hatred of “big government”—combined with an econo…
Read More…ssues. Despite Throckmorton’s wish, these groups are not likely to abandon free speech claims as their chief line of defense against the SPLC. The possible squelching of their free speech is the only rational argument they have; even their religious liberty arguments fall short, as they’ve been unable to offer any actual proof that their religious liberty has been vanquished in Massachusetts or Iowa. The free speech claim is the only one for which…
Read More
…with breaking away from what I was anchored in, and trying to find my own code. But it was a code that was birthed from parents who were strong believers in a higher set of ways of living your life. And that’s what they bequeathed to me. So precious. Do you think that some people are just better at religion than others? Christopher Isherwood talks about the idea of the “religious genius.” Do you think that’s possible? Why not? It makes sense. I t…
Read More