Religion Dispatches
…ere, but I think it’s important to remember that the needs of a critically ill patient have been known to conflict with a healthcare provider’s principles.) With all due respect, putting the onus on the patient, as if patients enjoy such a range of choice in their healthcare providers, seems at least as unrealistic a prospect as convincing nearly all sexually-active adults in the U.S. that they shouldn’t use contraception. No, this problem will…
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…onally Reformed Protestant they see as heterodox for her politics and her willingness to tell the truth about systemic misogyny in conservative, mostly white evangelical subculture. Many seem to have picked up on the thread via William E. Wolfe, a Heritage Action for America alum and former Trump administration official in the Defense and State Departments who is currently pursuing a formal theological education with the goal of becoming a pastor….
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…dom Lego arrangements would form a functional figure like Hogwarts or the Millennium Falcon, the chance of something like the Millennium Falcon randomly evolving from a bunch of Legos is so infinitesimally small that it is effectively impossible. Similarly, given how many ways an average protein could be arranged if just randomly assembled from its parts, and given how few of those randomly-assembled variants would actually function, no functional…
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…r —the man who walked into a church and shot abortion provider Dr. George Tiller in the head—indulged imprecatory prayers for Tiller before shooting him. He was part of a so-called “Prayer and Action Network,” a radical ant-abortion outfit closely associated with the far-right Patriot movement where such prayers are standard features. It should be obvious how such prayers could be really lethal in their toxicity. They impart upon both the speaker…
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…, David versus Goliath battle against some adversary, however amorphous or ill-defined. Being a victim, after all, means that, whatever your plight or your circumstances, it’s not your fault. The paradox, of course, is that even as Palin professes to fantasize about going “back to Wasilla and stop feeding the media beast,” she derives both fortune and fame from that “beast,” which includes the fawning downstream media. The appeal derives, in part…
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…ate, an ancient institution revived by Vatican II. In 2000, 341 of Mexico’s 800 deacons served the Diocese of San Cristobal, the largest number of deacons in any Catholic diocese in the world. Vatican suspicion of Bishop Ruiz’s liberationist pastoral strategy resulted in a failed attempt to remove him in 1993. The deacon program came under particular scrutiny after the 1994 Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, with reports that Maya catechists defied th…
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…tric Association withdrew its classification of homosexuality as a “mental illness,” the change was widely reported as were the growing number of cities that added “sexual orientation” to anti-discrimination laws. By the end of the decade, reporters were filing profiles about a “hip” community with its own bars, clubs, music, and fashion as well as a distinctively uninhibited sexual scene. Journalists also covered an emerging religious backlash, c…
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…d state and local taxes are high are likely already to be hurt by the tax bill; some will surely feel that the elimination of the exclusion for their housing allowance would only add insult to injury. (And some ministers, of course, take advantage of the tax code to exclude many tens of thousands of dollars from taxation.) For congregations that do not provide housing to their clergy, the elimination of subsection 107(2) will have a more indirect,…
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…republic within Russia—was confronted about his nation’s imprisonment and killing of gay and bisexual men; an unknown number have been murdered. Kadyrov was furious at the questioning by reporter David Scott: “Why does he come here? What’s the point of these questions?” Kadyrov finally answered,”We don’t have those kinds of people here… If there are there take them to Canada… Take them far from us so we don’t have them at home… To purify our blood…
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…most Catholic health care institutions have accepted the accommodation, a number of the nation’s 260 Catholic institutions of higher learning as well as Catholic nonprofits are seeking a broader exemption that would in effect bar their insurers from providing contraceptive coverage as specified under the accommodation designed by the Department of Health and Human Services. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a consolidated case challenging th…
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