Religion Dispatches
…rospect of Barack Obama as the first president of the United States with African American ancestry is a thrilling possibility for so many, yet also cannot be disassociated from America’s shameful slaveholding past and the ghosts of so many Africans who died so that slavery might live, and African Americans brutally killed as a result of prejudice, hatred, and injustice. In our enlightened, scientific age, we don’t believe in the existence of ghost…
Read More…the woman in consultation with her doctor, I believe we need to reduce the number of abortions in America. I believe government has the responsibility to regulate in this area and I support parental consent and notification requirements and I oppose partial birth abortion. I also believe there are people of good will on both sides of the issue and we ought to work together to support and promote adoption as an alternative to abortion. Apart from t…
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…ment. Like Winthrop, Moore believes that the Old Testament should order American society, whether Exodus or Leviticus. The ancient Israelites in these societies either adhered, or they didn’t, to God’s covenant with him. The Chosen people did not live in democratic societies—the meanest and worst form of government—and neither should we. In his Biblical non-concession speech on Tuesday, Moore confirmed what has been known about him all along. He a…
Read More…pastoral care.” Their counseling services included promoting their hotline number on Fox News under the title “National Mental Health Assistance.” In 2002, Tom Cruise and executives from Scientology’s FASE (Foundation for the Advancement in Science and Education) launched “Downtown Medical” (also called “New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project”). This facility offered FDNY firefighters and other recovery workers the opportunity to partake i…
Read More…o my mind when I started looking for coverage of the Aga Khan’s visit: “Americans are interested in hearing a major Muslim leader speak of tolerance and cooperation, so why isn’t the media covering the Aga Khan’s visit?” Patel, with his interfaith interest, focused on the message of Pluralism the Aga Khan espoused, and the role education plays in generating a sense of pluralism amongst people. All these messages are accurate and necessary, but of…
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…bson’s Barbarian Virtues are two of the most influential books for me, so I’d have loved to have written those! What’s your next book? I’m in the early stages of my next project, exploring how Holiness adherents understood and demonstrated their identity as sanctified individuals and as part of a sanctified community. For some of this, I will be looking at the connections they made here in the United States across regional lines as well as with th…
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…ve. They put themselves at the center of some of the biggest divides in American religion and culture, which meant that they had no shortage of supporters and critics on either side, particularly with regard to the prosperity gospel. What alternative title would you give the book? My working title was Pressed Down, Shaken Together, which comes from one of the favorite Bible verses of prosperity preachers at the time, including Jim Bakker. But my e…
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…Sufjan Stevens, both outwardly and explicitly religious in much of their lyrical content. Critics dutifully labored to remove Christ’s centrality from their music in their reviews, trying to paint more ambiguity into the lyrics than was present in order to explain away how it could possibly resonate. The Rolling Stone review of Neutral Milk Hotel’s In The Aeroplane Over the Sea says, “his lyrics carry the innocent piety of the early Beats, with se…
Read More…ebate but it is between the mental health establishment and a much smaller number of traditionally minded religious therapists. However, even if Spiegel had correctly identified the nature and participants in the debate, she still would not have gotten it quite right. To his credit, Schumacher-Matos does a better job when he reviews material given to him by Spiegel and her editor Anne Gudenkauf. Among other things, Schumacher-Matos read an article…
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…llenging traditional Church leaders as legitimate representatives of the African American community. Will new cleavages appear within evangelicalism (or deepen within the Black Church), pitting these factions against each other? Or, will those groups that are not invested in either the evangelical industrial complex, or remaining culture war issues like LGBT rights, move to create alternative institutions that better serve their needs? 3. The Fran…
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