Religion Dispatches
…te-sponsored wickedness and the canons of true politeness do not ban their use. When you use policy (rather than a gun) to kill innocent people, it’s called murder. When you ruin people by stripping them and their children of basic health care, that constitutes morally criminal assault. And make no mistake, when you boycott the inauguration (and promise resistance to) a presidency pre-announced as a compound of bigotry, misogyny, and the shredding…
Read More…or us, to do. Is there anything you had to leave out? Even the longest, least edited memoir leaves out most of life — and that’s a good thing. Descriptions of me brushing my teeth and so on wouldn’t be worth readers’ time. Because so much of the book concerns things that are hard to think about, I felt obligated to make sure that what I included would be relevant not just to me (even now that I have a self and a life, I don’t think they are part…
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…ologies that have arisen out of neo-Marxist, postmodern worldviews and are used by many to promote those worldviews today.” The continued critique of CRT and Intersectionality led to the formation of the Conservative Baptist Network. According to their purpose statement, they believe in a “just society for all based on biblical truth, opposing racism and sexism in all forms, and therefore rejects worldly ideologies infiltrating the Southern Baptis…
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…ds a man of his first lover and evokes a longing that cuts to the heart. I used to think I’d someday sort out the difference between what I believe “for myself” and how I was conditioned to think. These days I don’t believe that clarity is possible. For one thing belief is a snapshot of just that day since beliefs change and we also change our minds. So instead I use the fundamentalist chains binding my brain as a point of creative departure, as t…
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…United States) are alleged to be stockpiling guns, teaching people how to use explosives, planning a war against the government, and initiating a final battle with the Antichrist. It appears they planned to kill local police officers with hopes this would bring others to the violent religious war. What do the Christians believe? We are witnessing what could be one of the most destructive scandals ever in the Catholic Church. A flurry of reports a…
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…an ever: with multiple indictment trials looming, returning to the White House is the only surefire way to avoid jail time. In order to get there, however, he must a) lock up the nomination, and b) defuse the massive public response to the overturn of Roe v. Wade, which has propelled Democrats to victory even in deep-red states. He is betting on his Veterans Day comments being incendiary enough to achieve both aims. On one level, Trump’s comments…
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…Court in support of that belief. If he were a pastor, he could legally refuse to perform a wedding for a same-sex couple. But Masterpiece Cakeshop is a business open to the public; it cannot choose to deny service to same-sex couples. If Phillips believes baking a cake for a same-sex couple violates his religious beliefs, he can choose not to operate a business. The same would be true if an atheist baker believed that baking a cake for a baptism…
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…assed in most situations to admit that or to publically advocate for their use. Some of my earliest essays focused on what John Wesley would do. Our denomination has a great heritage of being involved in healing care. Wesley operated his own medical clinic in London and handed out medical tracts as well as spiritual leaflets. He was quite non-judgmental and very much concerned with caring for persons without stigmatizing. I don’t think it is too m…
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