Religion Dispatches
…call evangelical. But, back then, through the 1980s and ’90s we were “Born Again” or “Charismatic.” We evangelized, but never referred to ourselves as evangelical. Perhaps this is because it has always been difficult to know what one means by “evangelical.” Is it a theological construct, as some argue, or a social categorization? David Bebbington, a British historian who studied the movement, famously defined evangelicalism as marked by belief in…
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…“the idea of man [sic] as a geographic agent.” First, let’s jump ahead to data points about human impact on the natural world that Glacken didn’t have in 1967. These updated data points will overly determine everything in society moving forward, including how humans produce religion and thus how we academically study, research, and teach about it. They’re also data points published in just the last two months, bridging 2020 into 2021. Trends sugge…
Read More…e to religion and all this talk about those annoying moral values voters.” Again, who? Fred Clarkson very properly called this out in a Public Eye piece some months back. Sanctimony: There are almost too many examples of this to name. Here’s one: “Though Sojourners is now under attack from some angry pro-choice zealots…” and another: “The problem with not compromising is that when you lose, you can end up with less than you might have gotten other…
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…st, in mid-August when Christianity Today ran a long story co-authored by managing editor Ted Olsen and a blogger and former businessman named Ken Smith. As Olsen tells it, his interest in David Jang dates back several years. He describes a time, over four years ago, when Christianity Today was in talks with the Christian Post about working together in some capacity. Then, Olsen says, one of CT’s partners in the Global Christian Alliance cautioned…
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(Warning: spoilers ahead) Against my better judgment, this past weekend I went to see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, directed by David Fincher, who’s best known for Fight Club and The Social Network. I didn’t like the book; it unsettled me that a novel filled with sexual violence against women—a novel that seems to take pleasure in the violence, to offer it up for readers to consume—became such a sensation. But I’m a sucker for a trailer and…
Read More…ere is no surprise. Not much, anyway. What we have here is a case of Lucy managing to pull the football out from under poor old Charlie Brown, again. We go through this every four years: there’s a flurry of articles wondering Is This The End Of The Religious Right?, pointing to the emergence of a new liberal wing of the evangelical movement, or declaring that this is the year evangelicals are going to totes break up with the GOP nominee. And then…
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…t more importantly neither these people nor McArdle’s article offered any data indicating an increase in support for infanticide. In fact, Gallup polls show Americans are pretty evenly divided on abortion. A report from 2012 found that this was also true for those between the ages of 18 and 34. In the last decade, there’s only been a little movement in public opinion, with pro-choice views declining by about 4 points among women under 50 and by ab…
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…to reflect on the 10 years since a group of activists articulated the Yogyakarta Principles on the application of international human rights law to questions of sexual orientation and gender identity. The U.S. Commission on International Freedom released its 2017 annual report. It was the first report in which Russia was classified as a “country of particular concern,” defined as a country whose governments engage in or tolerate “particularly sev…
Read More…e 1,300 Southern Baptist clergy and laity to Nashville, with a defiant declaration that Southern Baptists and their churches will never recognize or tolerate same-sex relationships, another more pastoral and conciliatory theme was later championed by the conference convener, Russell Moore. Mohler later gave a brief nod to Moore’s tone when he acknowledged that he had been wrong years ago when he said that same sex attractions could be changed, ech…
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Over the past few days I’ve seen a number of references to “America’s Birthday” coming up on Friday. If a commercial advertiser wants to say this, fine (I guess). But I have spotted a couple of otherwise sober-minded writers using the “birthday” tag as well, and their ignorance is more disturbing. July 4, 1776, was in no way the birthday of anything. It was the start of a long and savage struggle against the world’s most powerful empire at the ti…
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