Religion Dispatches
…study history is not to understand past events, but to understand God our place in His plan. It is exactly this sacralizing of history that makes organizations like Vision Forum so effective among homeschoolers. Rather than being lost in the mundane trials of everyday life, Christian homeschoolers, and believers who embrace this vision of history, find themselves at the center of the plans of Almighty God, building “multi-generational faithfulness…
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…t underlie it. Conservatives would not be so hot under their collective collars if that were not the case. But I am cognizant of the very powerful public relations machine that has turned an ecclesial ocean liner on a dime, transformed an all but written-off patriarchy into one of the most inviting, benevolent monarchies the world has seen in modern times. But substantive structural and doctrinal issues do not evaporate just because the pope does…
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…astic lands facilitated a shifting of the burden of public finance, particularly that required for unpopular foreign wars, onto the shopkeepers, laborers, and the poor. Of course, religious institutions no longer control the bulk of national wealth in Britain or elsewhere, but the ethical depravity associated with inequitable distribution of education, opportunity, and the shiny stuff that goes with ill-gotten wealth continues to incite tightly tw…
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…stion a long time,” said white-haired Nadine Hansen of Cedar City, Utah, a lay scholar of Mormon theology and history, as she stepped forward to request access to priesthood session. Hansen smiled and shook hands with Peterson. Other participants, like Stephanie Lauritzen of Salt Lake City, were turned away from the door of the historic Mormon Tabernacle with tears streaming down their cheeks. A few minutes before the session’s scheduled six o’c…
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…rnet in the early nineties for most people consisted largely of acquiring plane tickets, reading relatively static documents, and emailing acquaintances. By 2004, the year before John Paul died, search engines had become sophisticated and powerful, and the immensely popular online world Second Life was in its third year. MySpace had appeared the year before, and Mark Zuckerberg was feverishly writing the code that would become Facebook. YouTube w…
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…himself, first by joining an extremist sect called the Montanists (a group later declared to be, you guessed it, heretical), then by breaking from them and forming a Christian collective of his own. He is alleged to have died in extreme old age. “I believe it because it is absurd… I know it because it is impossible.” With these resonant words, Tertullian announced an entirely new way of making argument convincing, as well as an utterly novel way o…
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…ntinued without any consequence for thirty years or so—except for some regular whining by offended faithful. Then came 9/11, followed four years later by the global outburst of violence after a Danish newspaper published cartoons mocking Muhammad, and then, in November 2011, Charlie Hebdo’s headquarters were burned down after it published caricatures of Muhammad. Charlie Hebdo never stopped publishing this type of cartoon, but it gradually lost re…
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…hanging out on stoops and patios. As Tyler emphasized, this is a working-class black community. The one element that marked it as a place where something terrible had taken place was the significant police presence. As we visited Ferguson Market and Liquor, the corner store Michael Brown visited before heading to his encounter with Wilson on Canfield Drive, there were at least six Ferguson police officers with accompanying cruisers guarding the e…
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…t allow an event that offends him personally to go forward, “even when the law of the land appears to require it.” Wendler’s efforts earned him days of student-led protests; a lawsuit filed through free speech advocacy organization, FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression); and an overwhelming loss in a nonbinding faculty no-confidence vote, which was partly motivated by his cancelation of the student drag show. Because of WT’s West…
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…olving habit and an exercise in seduction. The U.S.’s prosperity, born of slave labor, the plantation owner dividing his slaves by way of hierarchy. The U.S. government splicing up Native land into reservations: “Plus the Great Chief in Washington promises your tribe $1 million.” The losers, criminals, and out-casts have learned to survive by imitating the powers that be. Duplicity, seduction, and addiction are the American reality. “Come on boys…
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