Religion Dispatches
…holarship done this summer. Meanwhile, I try to hold it together to write a 800-word piece without crying and wanting to tear my hair out about the pain of my people. I’m not writing prophetic words to you anymore. You fix this shit. I’m done carrying the cross of America, its false promises of democracy and inclusion, the documents that excluded me and called my ancestors three-fifths of a person. You figure it out. I’m about comforting Black peo…
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…to raise capital for Heritage USA. He was found guilty of fraud in October 1989 and sentenced to forty-five years in prison. He only served five. After being released from prison in 1994, Bakker wrote I Was Wrong (1996), in which he renounced the prosperity gospel and apologized for preaching a false message. Then he turned his gaze to another lucrative arena: the apocalypse industry. Here, Bakker has found a niche. As he put it on the show, his…
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…isville and before the fundamentalist takeover of the seminary in the early 1990s Crescent Hill was the spiritual home for many students, staff, and distinguished professors. Today the 800-member church is a diverse community of faith including people of various races, ethnic backgrounds, sexual orientation, and world-views. Refugees and immigrants compose roughly one-third of the congregation. The church is heavily invested in a wide array of soc…
Read More…t “morph into something like the Ku Klux Klan,” lives in a “one of a kind,” 19-chimneyed mansion in the heart of Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood conservatively valued at $14.3 million. And he is waited on by three nuns who live in a nearby coach house—very Downton Abbey. • Seattle Archbishop James Sartain, who is currently in charge of making sure that the naughty nuns of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious don’t spend too much time wor…
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…in Israel and the US, are legendary. The former Chief Rabbi of Israel and spiritual leader of many Middle Eastern Jews, said, among other things, that Palestinians “should perish from the world” and that “it is forbidden to be merciful to them”; of non-Jews in general, he declared that “Goyim were born only to serve us.” Despite comments like these, his funeral last October was the largest in the country’s history, with 800,000 Israelis attending…
Read More…his daughter Bella was hospitalized.) Organizers said they had distributed 1,800 tickets, and the pews in the church were nearly full, with several hundred, if not nearly a thousand people in attendance. Gingrich was the only candidate to appear; Staver, the “forum’s” moderator took pains to point out that they had invited the other candidates. Santorum and Ron Paul had commitments outside of Florida. Mitt Romney, the candidate Staver and other l…
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…Airport on June 13, and her funeral is coming up on Saturday morning, June 18. Cohocton is not alone in this, as it joins the many other small towns and cities in the United States and beyond that mourn the consequences of militarism and war. Nor is the town alone as it is forced to join other places where sexuality is contested in contemporary American culture in overt ways. Cohocton is a small town, with a population in 2009 of about 800 people…
Read More…f declared that “the miracle of unity has begun.” “Let’s give each other a spiritual hug and let God complete the work that He has begun,” said Francis. The Trinity Foundation, the Dallas, Texas-based Christian watchdog group that monitors and investigates televangelism fraud, has questions, asking why the Pope would meet with religious leaders “who engage in the same kind of excesses he’s been preaching against.” In a statement, the Trinity Found…
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…ist dubbed “The Princess of Pop,” Spears has five No. 1 singles and six No. 1 albums. She’s sold 150 million records around the world. After a public episode of mental illness in 2008, Spears was assigned a conservator. Since 2008, she’s nonetheless conducted four world tours, recorded four albums, and performed 248 sold-out shows in Las Vegas. Today she’s worth more than $60 million. While everyone knows about Spears, few know—and even fewer disc…
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…. Houston’s Joel Osteen has a net worth over $50m and a church that holds 16,800 but this is all he’s offering. pic.twitter.com/rmhdWK6ZAO — Mark Elliott (@markmobility) August 28, 2017 What I mean is, Joel Osteen is not selling the preferential option for the poor. Your best life is not being flooded out of your house — ProfB (@AntheaButler) August 28, 2017 Whatever one’s opinion about Osteen, the Twitter storm above Lakewood Church perpetuated…
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