Religion Dispatches
…nceived advertising stunt, set off buzz and worry such that this Sunday an official correction was issued from the company. “We recently issued a press release on Zodiac signs and accident rates, which led to some confusion around whether astrological signs are part of the underwriting process,” the statement reads. “Astrological signs have absolutely no role in how we base coverage and set rates. Rating by astrology would not be actuarially soun…
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…re-sister was in Czechoslovakia). I fear they will be co-opted by the same officials who now denounce them. Already the churchmen use them. Instead of ignoring the women and letting the chips call where they may, Roman officials have found that by excommunicating women priests they have a convenient way to distract from the criminal activity of priest pedophiles and bishops who covered up their crimes. Note that while every woman priest has been e…
Read More…culum. Because they are not subject to the same formal adoption process as official textbooks, supplemental materials used in local school districts could rely on some seriously dubious source matter. (Discovery Institute material, perhaps?) Expect the battles over this issue to take place in Texas and Louisiana. Well, last week, the Foundation for Thought and Ethics appeared on a list of publishers who plan to submit supplementary materials for r…
Read More…t would be a welcome reminder indeed. Years ago, a high-ranking LDS Church official was reported to have compared working with Elder Boyd K. Packer to trying to “stage manage a grizzly bear.” In October 2010, after Elder Packer delivered a highly controversial and bruising talk on LGBT issues at the Church’s global General Conference, grizzly bears indeed may have been stage managed. Packer’s talk was revised for publication and (in response to pr…
Read More…Media Companies to help women ease their financial anxieties. A cheery website offers articles, webinars, social networking forums, and promotional videos featuring Deseret Media executive (and former LDS Church official) Shari Dew with 1980s-style stock footage of apparently independent women jogging, counting money, and sitting at their kitchen tables with their children. And all of this about 30 years after the LDS Church helped torpedo the Eq…
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…y outside forces to suppress or manipulate him and who targeted an elected official for assassination. But unpacking Zeitgeist may be more interesting than for understanding Loughner. The movement has a following, and unknown numbers — perhaps millions — of people have watched the films. It’s fringey but it garners a write-up in the Times or the Huffington Post, as if it’s just another interesting movement of people who believe our social structur…
Read More…up Aish HaTorah, although Ronn Torossian, the group’s spokesperson, denied official involvement. (Torossian represents other right-wing religious individuals and organizations; after the Washington Post hired Christian right lawyer-activist Jordan Sekulow as a blogger last month, Politico’s Ben Smith reported that Torossian, a “frequent Gawker target,” repeatedly pitched reporters with Sekulow’s implausible expertise in a wide variety of subjects….
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…the public eye in recent weeks. The governor was one of the few government officials willing to speak out forcefully and publicly; not only about the trumped up case against Aasia Bibi (who was accused by neighbors with whom she was involved in other disputes at the time of the accusation) but also about the need to reform the blasphemy laws instituted during the military dictatorship of General Zia-ul-Haq from 1977-1988. The blasphemy laws (Penal…
Read More…culum. Because they are not subject to the same formal adoption process as official textbooks, supplemental materials used in local school districts could rely on some seriously dubious source matter. (Discovery Institute material, perhaps?) Expect the battles over this issue to take place in Texas and Louisiana. Because of financial constraints, the Texas Board of Education has decided to delay the adoption process of new science textbooks, which…
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…urch, had only three confessions visible and had not yet offered his first official edict. For better and worse, as of my survey, it seemed the trolls had not yet discovered Penance. Still uncomplicated by tales of murder and rape, nor even confessions denigrating other Saints by name or mocking the application, Penance feels still untried, a community yet to crystalize around substantial moral challenges, a larval church which may or may not ever…
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