Religion Dispatches
…quences of one prayer’s answer are more troubles than you were facing. So, better to be prudent. I used to have a sticker in my car that I think sums it up, “Oh Allah grant me the most benevolent outcome.” This is the idea behind the special prayer worship called istikharah. Again, no details, but the word itself means asking for the best outcome, even as it is attached to an elaborate formula of ritual request. In another entry I had mentioned…
Read More…ration (or two) of Catholic women from the church. Not only were women who used contraception selfish harlots, but the very use of contraception was leading them to have abortions: It may be that many people use contraception with a view to excluding the subsequent temptation of abortion. But the negative values inherent in the “contraceptive mentality”… are such that they in fact strengthen this temptation when an unwanted life is conceived. … Th…
Read More…come.) Sacred borderlands The truly unprecedented thing was, for lack of a better term, the creation of coalition on the axes of race and sexuality. It didn’t hurt that of the fourteen students who were selected to be in the program, eight were people of color. Not surprisingly only four of the eighteen teacher/mentors were, and this generational shift bodes well for the future of Queer/LGBT religious movements. And it also didn’t hurt that the wh…
Read More…man beings are created in God’s image and they deserve to be protected because they are a human being uniquely created by God with innate dignity and worth, and not because of how they identify sexually.” Honestly, could she even hear herself? If she and FotF truly believed that, and encouraged conservative Christian parents to actually teach that to their potential bullies in training, then there would be no need for anti-bullying legislation. Bu…
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…e Care Act, to pay for the abortion coverage. Experts believe this could cause insurance companies, for economic reasons, to drop abortion coverage altogether, leaving women without a way for paying for an abortion, even in situations in which a continued pregnancy poses severe health risk. In addition, the Smith bill would prohibit women from using flexible savings or medical savings accounts — which are funded by their own money, not taxpayer mo…
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…would probably not seek to change other ex-gay ministries that continue to use “reparative therapy” or other harmful “treatments” on LGBT people. “We’re not interested in fighting anymore,” Rodgers said. We want to work on suicide prevention and anti-bullying causes. We’re more concerned with seeing human flourishing.” It’s all very promising and conciliatory talk from an outfit that has done much harm to the LGBT community in the past. But if the…
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…eason, federal judges repeat the religion and ignore the treason when they use Duché’s prayer to interpret our Constitution. Justice Alito used the Duché story to uphold a 40-foot concrete cross on government land maintained with hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars. Alito spent a paragraph on the election of Duché as chaplain without mentioning his name or his perfidy: “…Thus, when an Episcopal clergyman was nominated as chaplain, some Congr…
Read More…nd care for each other, in good times and bad, in sickness and health, for better or worse, for as long as you both shall live?” Some of us are lucky enough to have found the partner who loves us enough to say, “I will.” If the cries of “liberal judge” become too loud, then use your second piece of information and simply show them this video. It’s an Australian ad in support of marriage equality. If they aren’t tearing up by the end, then do as my…
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…they understand this as a public health intervention addressing the root causes of racial inequality. And there’s also an important difference between these protests and those in previous eras. They are decidedly multi-racial. The demand to defund the police and reinvest in social goods that address social problems while redefining safety strikes at the heart of the racial contract that citizens in Minneapolis and across the nation are attempting…
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…blast me across the face of the earth. I use strange abstract symbols and codes to communicate both useless and necessary threads of conversation to my species. Sometimes it just makes me want to sit back, put my feet up, and marvel. I’m a good old-fashioned humanist—or, at least, about two-thirds of me is. I’m an academic in that great behemoth we call “the humanities”; a humanist by training. I’ve spent inordinate amounts of time reflecting on…
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