Religion Dispatches
…ugh the ages, Ronald Reagan. John McCain’s experiences as a POW during the Vietnam War surely speak to heroism and adversity under horrible pressures, but they do not erase memories of body bags, fallen comrades, and those martyrs missing in action who may be lost forever or whose remains find their way back to the states for final burial. The prospect of Barack Obama as the first president of the United States with African American ancestry is a…
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…eeklies’ born-again fondness for religious authority has not endured until today. Since the explosion of the clergy sex abuse scandals in the media, a curious trend has emerged on the covers of news magazine. In four Time covers—April 1, 2002, November 27, 2006, June 7, 2010, February 25, 2013—the familiar figure of the pope appears, but altered. Unlike the scores of previous covers featuring the Bishop of Rome, the pope now stands either with his…
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…ades—Meany’s crowd—raining both bricks and brickbats down on an early anti-Vietnam War demonstration in the streets of New York. A whiff of foreign-ness: From the 1890s onward a huge quantum of trade union energy came from new immigrant groups that brought their social solidarity with them to the new world. Jews and Italians, both already despised and feared, were foremost among these. Think Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman. Think Sacco and Vanz…
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…t in certain kinds of crimes. Early Christians who lapsed from their moral code in particularly serious and public ways were subjected to canonical public penance. They sat outside the church doors, sometimes in literal sackcloth, begging for the prayers of those who could come to worship until they were restored to fellowship by receiving pardon. This ritual evolved into a method of addressing political quarrels and public disgrace in the Middle…
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…of cleavage there.” My high school had strict, “biblically-inspired” dress code guidelines, so I had to forgo any jewelry or makeup, and I’d made sure my dress had long sleeves and fell well below my knees. He was staring at my breasts when he laughed and said, “You’re a Cleavage Queen. I’m going to call you C.Q.” And thus my nickname was born. My body grew hot. I clenched my teeth to hold back tears. I nervously adjusted my dress and went back to…
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…inked efforts of NAR networks, it’s become a potent far-right symbol and a coded emblem for an extensive spiritual warfare campaign, all of which became entwined with the Trump Administration and Trump 2020 Campaign. […] In the helter-skelter season between the 2020 election and the January 6 attempt to forcibly interfere with the result, the Appeal to Heaven flag had become a ubiquitous symbol adopted by charismatic Christians to exhibit their fa…
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…. I spent long days learning about the code of criminal procedure, traffic code, and arrest procedures. I also had a first-row seat to the cadets’ physical, ideological, and emotional transformations as, over a period of six to eight months, they became police officers. What I saw in that year directly conflicted with the “bad apple” arguments that existed then and that would continue to offer a popular explanation for police violence just a few y…
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…l codes. Tunisia’s anti-sodomy laws are derived from the 1913 French Penal Code, while section 347 of the penal code in Christian Cameroon is a French colonial law. Similarly, the Ottoman adoption of French codes would ban the köçek. Across the Muslim world, many of the laws criminalizing LGBTQ+ people are direct relics of colonial law. It would take generations to gradually align the region with European colonial sexual values through a shift in…
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…tholic Church. Bishops usually cite Canon 915, a provision of the church’s Code of Canon Law that stipulates that any Catholic the hierarchy formally declares excommunicated or “manifesting” grave sin may not receive communion. The following canon, 916, states that any Catholic who “who is conscious of grave sin” can’t receive communion either. And in the current edition of the Catholic Catechism, “procuring” abortion—which could mean anything fro…
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…off the southern tip of Spain. United Kingdom: Former Tory leader opposes ‘promotion’ of homosexuality in schools Lord Norman Tebbit, a former Conservative Party chair, spoke out against “promotion” of homosexuality in the schools, saying “I think it is damaging to children to introduce uncertainty into their minds.” Kenya: Activist profiled The Star’s Lydia Matata wrotes about gender non-conforming activist Joji Baro. China: Most LGBT people fear…
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