Religion Dispatches
…ine God, and to believe that what we imagine might help bring into being a better world. The words we use to talk about God, the images we use to think about God, are human words and images, infected with our limitations, interests, and biases. We must engage, therefore, in relentless criticism of our faith and its symbols, always knowing we might be wrong, and those we torture might be right. The kind of God we imagine affects the kind of world i…
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…money. In all of these categories, participation was higher among internet users than non-internet users, making clear that digital or so-called “virtual” practice is an important component of the “real” relationships and commitments made by believers today. Texting, blogging, tweeting, and posting on Facebook group pages and personal profiles have become, as I argue in my own forthcoming work on the topic, important modes of relational and spirit…
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…mber to file a complaint against Ellis—which the Starr administration then used as a pretext to open a freewheeling investigation. Ellis added, “They are exaggerating the charges to the point where they don’t even believe it.” (Neither the faculty member nor her lawyer responded to requests for comment. Furthermore, Baylor would not say whether the school had received permission from the woman to release the charges.) In a speech at the American A…
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…in the context of a specific interpersonal relationship. However, when you use conservative coded language like “lifestyle” to describe the lives of a particular category or class of people, you are engaging in hate speech, you are perpetuating a rhetoric of fear, even when you surround such rhetoric with words like “love” and “compassion.” You can think you “love” me personally all you want, and you may enjoy my winning personality endlessly. We…
Read More…tion 18 of the Constitution of Mississippi already protects as sacred “the free enjoyment of all religious sentiments and the different modes of worship.” Senate Bill 2681 is unnecessary to protect freedom of belief and worship in Mississippi, and potentially quite harmful. The professors are Ira Lupu and Robert Tuttle of George Washington University, Carlos A. Ball of Rutgers University, Sarah Barringer of the University of Pennsylvania, Dougla…
Read More…as unaware that the messengers voted on a resolution to boycott Disney because of its policies toward homosexuals. One resolution approved by the messengers this year that may not be so widely publicized is a resolution “On Affirming the Use of the Term ‘Christmas’ in Public Life.” The resolution denounces secularism as a “pervasive and aggressive movement” fueled by such groups as the American Civil Liberties Union, People for the American Way an…
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…uthority to “execute wrath on the wrongdoer.” He predicts that others will use the previous chapter to argue that Christians should never avenge themselves, “but leave it to the wrath of God; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’” Jeffress is right in reading Romans 12 as a moral instruction to individuals or communities of Christians, and chapter 13 as dealing with systems of government instead. But then he goes off…
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…n to be in charge of it, in his 2024 book, The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free, his fourth: But you didn’t even have to have read the book to know this about Hegseth. All you had to have done was watch Fox News—which should be a basic part of the Trumpism beat. It was on Fox that Hegseth emerged as the leading voice in defiance of the military justice system. Sam Thielman summed it up well in 2020 for Columbia Jour…
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…, agency and voice. The Handmaid’s Tale series feels so relevant today because it focuses on the experiences of a woman living under an oppressive regime. When reproductive rights activists in Texas and Missouri staged protests wearing handmaid’s costumes, it was a chilling statement that the Gilead regime does not seem far-fetched but frighteningly familiar. Patricia Miller: I think it’s important to note that Atwood said she didn’t put anything…
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…“aborted a much-needed public debate over whether identity-based bathroom use can and should be regulated as a legal right, or merely left as an option.” But despite the fact that Schuck professes to believe transgender equality is a noble cause, he unnecessarily belittles and trivializes the position transgender kids are in, saying the “only value in play here is transgender people’s desire to affirm their gender identity during their few minute…
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