Religion Dispatches
…ed States. But we might remind our European friends that a political arena free from religious concerns is the exception to the global rule. Even among their own “I” nations, while Iceland’s politics may maintain a secular purity, Ireland and Italy are decidedly more complicated cases. Which is all prelude to reflecting on this electoral season’s “pastor wars,” now mercifully in abeyance, but liable to heat up again at any time. Linking one’s poli…
Read More…this called this “theocratic libertarianism”: it creates an economic zone free of government regulation, but it does not create a zone free of the regulations of religion. This is the model in which care for the poor is the responsibility of the family and the church and any government safety net is labelled “socialism.” It is the model in which education is the sole responsibility of families, leading to the goal of eliminating public education…
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…e immensely popular Left Behind series by Timothy LeHay and Jerry Jenkins. Freedman argues that while the Left Behind series is ostensibly philo-Semitic (citing Melanie McAlister, Freedman calls it a kind of “Christian Zionism”) it retains old Christian anti-Semitic structures that are simply turned toward a new enemy (some of whom remain Jews). He writes: But this is not to say the text is free of anti-Semitic topoi [conventional themes]; indeed…
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…igious Freedom, which declared the “right of the human person to religious freedom,” including the right to be free from government coercion of religious practice or belief. Weigel quotes approvingly from Wojtyla who said during the council that “the right of religious freedom must always be tethered to the responsibility to seek and adhere to the truth, including the truth about God.” In other words, religious freedom must be oriented to the “tru…
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…of whom is Vice President Mike Pence, infamous for the anti-LGBT Religious Freedom Restoration Act he championed while governor of Indiana), should indeed prompt LGBT equality advocates to remain on guard, Kreis said. Just because this particular “religious liberty” executive order didn’t explicitly target the LGBT community doesn’t mean Trump won’t sign another order that does. “I think it’s better to be on guard, and to be proactive, than to wis…
Read More…tive legal and religious groups that the agency is attempt to stifle their free speech. Through efforts such as Pulpit Freedom Sunday, pastors openly flout the law. Enforcement of the rule, and the revocation of a participating church’s tax-exempt status, though, could trigger a constitutional challenge to it. The rule against politicking, though, isn’t aimed at suppressing free speech but at ensuring that taxpayers don’t subsidize political activ…
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…ht are the ultimate camp followers. They’re latching onto government for a free ride while decrying it. They want to overthrow the present order from the inside in the name of God. The result is that there are two kinds of far-right evangelicals: the ones who make a public show of their animosity toward the president, accusing him of not being an American citizen, for example. They even say Obama has a secret plan to kill old people within his hea…
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…now hold dear. In his tormented, lonesome, obsessive, Calvinist way, he is free. I find him hard to like, but easy to love. Throughout The Wordy Shipmates, Vowell suggests that we live not in John Winthrop or Roger Williams’ world, but in Ronald Reagan’s redaction of their world. This, she argues effectively, is a tragic turn to a noble Arbella image. Ronald Reagan made us believe our city on the hill would come not through serious communitarianis…
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…harist, it included a restatement of a prohibition of totally wheat-gluten-free hosts. This was often reported as something of a snub of the Celiac sufferers (or gluten intolerant) among the faithful. But reading through the directive and the supporting documentation, I was struck by their attempts to accommodate communicants who can’t tolerate some essential aspect of the rite. The bread for the host can be so low in gluten as to qualify for “glu…
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…ed from North America to Europe, South America, and the Philippines, met a number of politically powerful Republican politicians and conservative religious leaders, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Iran/Contra figure Oliver North, and then-Senator Rick Santorum. Religious leaders like Charles Stanley (a former distributor), Dr. Robert Schuller and the late Dr. D. James Kennedy of Florida’s Coral Ridge Ministries—a multimedia, m…
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