Religion Dispatches
…Waldman, however. Though blowing the shofar (a curved piece of ram’s horn used like a trumpet) is usually reserved for the Jewish High Holy Days, Waldman now blows his at every opportunity. He has done so for Unification events across Asia and Europe, occasionally referring to his patron as “Rabbi Moon.” What’s in it for him? As he explained it at the time, he had been single when he first crossed paths with the Unification Church. But then, he s…
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…over the years, I continued to work out strategies for filling those gaps between written texts and lived experience. Once I discovered the synergy between my experiences as a child and the women in the study and how important talking to the dead was to us all, I realized that I had a niche for framing the disconnect that had disturbed me many years ago. In the end, what began from a dissatisfaction I experienced as a Geechee girl who wanted to s…
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…build the center. The Evening of Hope event itself bounced back and forth between efforts to promote access to abortion alternatives in the form of charitable services and political campaigning aimed at legally prohibiting abortion—a position the Republican Party’s platform. Palin and others invoked the notion of building and affirming a “culture of life,” to give the event an apolitical patina. Crisis pregnancy centers have been controversial in…
Read More…way to protest what the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, is planning is to read the Qur’an. This seems an appropriate way to not interfere with the free speech of others, and yet use our own freedom to express our dismay at those who use their freedom to express intolerance and to attempt to provoke others to violence and conflict. For those who wish to read the Qur’an online, here is a link. McGrath ends with a quote by Heinric…
Read More…anned hearings are being decried by religious leaders and scholars as an abuse of government power, a blow to religious freedom, and a government-backed demonization of millions of decent people of faith. As a Mormon, I find the King hearings particularly objectionable. Because Mormons of all people know what it feels like for an entire religion to be publicly demeaned for the objectionable deeds of its fringe minorities. And because our religion…
Read More…e Afghanistan and Pakistan have governments that are in various degrees of uselessness. There is a political angle to Obama’s support of Indonesia, as he attempts to set-up rival powers with China; Indonesia’s close relationship with Australia makes them a credible power center. Just as important, Obama recognizes that democracy is messy, painful, and not the same everywhere. Indonesia carved out its own understanding of democracy that recognizes…
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…s toys, without acknowledging the spiritual authority of believers as they use them in the world and bring their experience and insight into religious institutions misunderstands the radically participatory, dialogical, and collaborative nature of a contemporary Western culture informed by digital social technologies. It inadvertently reinforces a line between “faith” and “life” that believers now routinely transgress. Bible Mash-Up Where religiou…
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…would probably not seek to change other ex-gay ministries that continue to use “reparative therapy” or other harmful “treatments” on LGBT people. “We’re not interested in fighting anymore,” Rodgers said. We want to work on suicide prevention and anti-bullying causes. We’re more concerned with seeing human flourishing.” It’s all very promising and conciliatory talk from an outfit that has done much harm to the LGBT community in the past. But if the…
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…ologies that have arisen out of neo-Marxist, postmodern worldviews and are used by many to promote those worldviews today.” The continued critique of CRT and Intersectionality led to the formation of the Conservative Baptist Network. According to their purpose statement, they believe in a “just society for all based on biblical truth, opposing racism and sexism in all forms, and therefore rejects worldly ideologies infiltrating the Southern Baptis…
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…ination to take over their denomination around the issue of gay rights because it’s a real strategy that’s being used. Certainly the religious right has an agenda but I put more blame on the Republican party, which really didn’t have a personal agenda. But they made this calculation to cynically use the religious right in order to maintain power. As [gay Congressman] Barney Frank (D-MA) says in the film, in the seventies, Democrats and Republicans…
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