Religion Dispatches
…s story has made in the non-science press, at least not yet. Religion News Service noticed the discovery’s implications for the quickness of the origins of the universe. But I’ve seen little else about the human implications of this new snapshot of our human origins. Perhaps people are wary of overhyping, or not understanding the science. Fortunately as a religion writer I am subject to neither restriction. And when you see this video of the infor…
Read More…re Act to allow insurers to opt-out of providing maternity care as a basic service, as many conservatives have requested, with the goal of reducing premiums. “We have what’s called an X chromosome, which means we can’t have a baby,” he said on a Houston radio show to justify the oft-repeated claim that requiring plans to cover the health care costs associated with a pregnancy is unfair to men. Setting aside whatever meaning we might make of the fa…
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…e pews more than once a week, compared to 25% of progressives. Once-a-week numbers are a little more balanced: 37-36. Does this mean that conservatives are more religious than progressives, or that there’s something about church that makes one a conservative? Nope: evangelical and Catholic churches typically offer more than one service a week. Mainline congregations, which tend to be smaller, are open for business only on Sundays. As for the surpr…
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…some of Jim and Tammy’s appeal. PTL was all about images so there were any number of options. Too bad books can’t come with a dozen different covers to choose from. Is there a book out there you wish you had written? Which one? Why? I love the writing style of Lawrence Wright and Hampton Sides. They are both masters at weaving nonfiction into a page-turner. Anything half as good would be fine with me. What’s your next book? I’m not sure yet. Hopef…
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…try because of objections to “blasphemous content.” The IHEU reports being contacted by an increasing number of secularist groups organizing on Facebook, including groups in Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Malaysia, Pakistan, Tunisia, Turkey, and Sudan. In all of this, the United States is an anomaly since it rejects even laws against religious hate speech, which were found in 36 of 45 European states in 2011. It…
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…stian nationalism have been a part of evangelicalism from its beginning? A number of recent studies, for instance, have shown that the Moral Majority’s founding was prompted as much by federal interventions into the racist admission policies of evangelical colleges as it was by more moral concerns like abortion. Other scholars, meanwhile, have highlighted race’s centrality to American church history, noting that the evangelical involvement in the…
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…completely ignorant of at the time. Through the AVA, I began to find more contacts throughout the country and throughout the world. As it turns out, there are many groups of people who consider themselves to be ontologically different from normal humans. There are people who identify with angels, fairies, wolves, etc. By the end of my research I became convinced that this is a sizable community worthy of serious study. What’s the most important t…
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…to Mina, etc. There is still no address for the hotels, but a local phone number. There is also information about processing customs at Jeddah, meeting the tour guide, and information that says “the group” will proceed to Makkah—which means the first will have to wait for the last person, which is the beginning of feeling like you are a group. They even include suggestions to “get to know” your fellow travelers. I still had no idea what were the…
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…e of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities. I cannot count the number of times I have heard well-meaning, good-hearted people respond to this appeal, saying, “Things are a lot better for gay people today than they were several years (or decades) ago. In time, our society (or churches) will come around on this issue.” To these friends and others, I must say, “It’s time.” For Lucas, Brown, Clementi, Walsh, and Chase the time is up. For t…
Read More…t pamphlets under the guise of providing “pastoral care.” Their counseling services included promoting their hotline number on Fox News under the title “National Mental Health Assistance.” In 2002, Tom Cruise and executives from Scientology’s FASE (Foundation for the Advancement in Science and Education) launched “Downtown Medical” (also called “New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project”). This facility offered FDNY firefighters and other rec…
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