Religion Dispatches
…olleague Hussein Rashid pointed out in this must-read piece), Mormons, the number two most disliked religion in America, have no business contributing to public rage against the number one most disliked religion in America. Nor in trafficking in falsehoods like “Islam is an ideology, not a religion,” a line I’ve been hearing from a few Mormons in recent days. Islam is in fact a religion for which Mormon leaders from the time of George A. Smith…
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…e were informed that over 1600 individuals had registered to testify. That number was quickly growing, even with testimony set to end at midnight. It was gonna be a long day, and over a thousand Texans would not get to voice their opinion. After the main elements of the bill were highlighted by its author, the games commenced. Democratic lawmakers deployed stall tactics and asked probing questions; Republicans attempted to push through the proceed…
Read More…Having a husband meant that they could not give their ultimate all for the number one man on most African-American womens’ lips, and it’s not Denzel. It’s Jesus. For many women in churches like COGIC, being in love with Jesus means that most other men, whether desirable as a husband or not, stood in the way of the number one relationship. One person I interviewed even had a name for it: “being loosed” from your husband to do the Lord’s work. “Bein…
Read More…re were almost 900 reported cases of church arson in the late 1990s—a huge number compared to what we’ve seen in the last two weeks. A second difference is that of public response. In 1995-96, there was a unique alliance of actors creating “perfect storm” conditions. Black churches had long been the targets of racial hatred. But it was when Green Bay Packers player, Reggie White, spoke in an interview during the Super Bowl of 1996 about the arson…
Read More…t’s not a proud day for freedom of religion when a prominent member of the number two most disliked major religion in America effectively sides against a honest project by the number one most disliked major religion in America. Especially when Mormons have just recently come through our own years-long struggle to build an LDS temple in Center City Philadelphia after Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter tried to extract a six-figure sum from the Churc…
Read More…ble.” But those “moral objections” seem to be of less concern to a growing number of Americans: Just under half of Americans (45%) say they think engaging in homosexual behavior is a sin, while an equal number says it is not. Those who believe homosexual behavior is a sin overwhelmingly oppose gay marriage. Similarly, those who say they personally feel there is a lot of conflict between their religious beliefs and homosexuality (35% of the public)…
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…looks to be releasing new information on the Catholic vote on Halloween, a number which often closely tracks the final total of overall voters. It’s also a number that varies quite a bit by the racial breakdown. While Trump wins white Catholics 48-41, he gets absolutely crushed among Hispanics, 84-12. A few back-of-the-envelope calculations put us firmly in “Holy shit” territory. Even assuming a generous 50-50 split of black, Asian, and other Cath…
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…it the You Made it Weird channel at Nerdist.com to pick from any of a wide number of fun and thoughtful interviews. For a crash course on Holmes’ own religious beliefs you can listen to this interview with Emergent Church pastor Rob Bell. Category Winner. When it comes to conversations about religion, Krista Tippett’s On Being is the gold standard. The Peabody Award-winning radio program is also available as a podcast, and subscribers can access u…
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…te this, Metaxas’s tweet has been severely “ratioed,” which means that the number of responses far exceeds the number of “likes” and retweets. This is generally an indication that a tweet’s contents are either deeply controversial or profoundly ignorant (or both). In short: Twitter users have pushed back on Metaxas, and they’ve pushed back hard. In response he’s deployed a Trump-ian combination of backpedaling and doubling down on his initial clai…
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…, represented was the triumph of a new kind of mathematical science, where numbers and computation were esteemed in a whole new way. Copernicus, be sure to recall, did not yet have access to the telescope, so he was basing a number of his computations on things he could not see. In this brave new world, then, the scientists were also casting their “faith in things not seen.” It’s just that what they “saw” was perceived to run counter to the Roman…
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