Religion Dispatches
…riday the Salt Lake Tribune reported that Mormon missionaries in San Jose, Dallas and Denver are doing less tracting-going door to door in search of people to teach-and more service. The change began three years ago, when “San Jose leaders proposed that missionaries provide two hours of nonproselytizing community service every day, five days a week—up from the normal four or so hours a week. Missionaries are expected to find their own…
Read More…Copeland, and the behemoth Trinity Broadcasting Network, among others. The Dallas-based group, which marks its 40th anniversary this month, has sent out a fundraising plea to supporters and prospective donors, seeking to increase its base of members, who pay a minimum of $25 per year. It had been counting on the contribution of a single donor, which fell through. And because it has “purposely kept a low profile” while it assisted the Senate Financ…
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…hree people gathered together,” Idris Abdul-Zahir reminded his faithful in Philadelphia, “it’s a service”—even if those people are physically apart. More practically speaking, many people lack the technology they need to join online services, and even when they do have access, the experience can be awkward. Brian Weiser, a Modern Orthodox Jew from Denver, tried an online minyan but Zoom conferencing made the ritual feel disjointed. He missed “the…
Read More…ls to be virtuous girls.” Reformation Day. You’re in luck if you live near Dallas, Texas, you can attend Generals International’s Reformation Day celebration and pray for a “fresh start” for America, just in time for the elections. Reformation Day features Cindy Jacobs and Dutch Sheets, self-proclaimed apostles associated with the dominionist New Apostolic Reformation. Jacobs warns that President Obama is bringing God’s wrath in the form of natura…
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…that “the word of God…is sharper than any two-edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12). Dallas megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress declared that Trump held up the Bible because it teaches that God “hates lawlessness,” echoing verses like 1 John 3:4 (“Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness”) and Romans 13:1-5 (“Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed,” and so on). This isn’t the first time Jeffress used a “law and order” inte…
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…gram descriptions. Whatever his fate in these matters, Rapert epitomizes a number of trends on the Christian Right, here in the End Times. While the notion that the Christian Right is dead, diminished or in precipitous decline may never die, the movement nevertheless continues to grow and adapt to the ever-evolving religious and political landscape. Its strength has never been in the raw numbers of conservative evangelicals and conservative Cathol…
Read More…on organized a meeting of the emerging leaders of the religious right at a Dallas “Freedom Rally,” where, according to Huckabee, Robison realized the political power of conservative Christians and “would later be a part of a small circle of conservative evangelical leaders who would meet with Ronald Reagan and find him a man of principle and a patriot.” Religious right leaders helped organize a second meeting in 1980, after Reagan clinched the GOP…
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…obal strategic services for FotF and co-author of “Marriage on Trial”; Joe Dallas of the Dallas-based Genesis Counseling, and author of “The Gay Gospel? How Pro-Gay Advocates Misread the Bible”; and, Jim Tonkowich, of the Washington DC-based Institute on Religion and Democracy, and can be found here. ++++++++++ RD Tidbits: CPAC Rides Again: As the calendar whisks its way toward Super Bowl Sunday and the annual Oscar fest, another less celebrated b…
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…to the Enlightenment, a study of how premodern theologians, courtiers, and philosophers grappled with the question of when, if ever, it was acceptable to lie. We had an honest conversation about God, Donald Trump, fact-checkers, and whether dishonesty is essential to civilization. ___________ Michael Schulson: Lying bring ups theological questions, right? Dallas Denery: Especially in the Christian tradition, lying pretty much defines the world and…
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…colleges, including Westminster Theological Seminary, Wheaton College, and Dallas Theological Seminary, and received a favorable review in Christianity Today. Venoit told me he doesn’t consider Gothard’s organization a cult, but that Gothard’s “view of authority is the core of where things go wrong.” Gothard teaches, in the first hour of the first night of his “basic” seminar that “authority is like an umbrella of protection.” If you get out of th…
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