Religion Dispatches
…had to leave out? I did not discuss the political tasks of secularists in today’s America—the need to “out” ourselves in order to form a significant political force. I’ve been doing this since, in USA Today, in The Nation, in other articles and interviews. I’ve just completed an op-ed to President Obama thanking him for mentioning nonbelievers in his inauguration address but pointing out that he’s treated us as invisible during the campaign and c…
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…grassroots AIDS movement challenged the Catholic Church’s role in AIDS/HIV politics in the United States; in doing so, they challenged, as well, who “owned” the Church. As one organizer argues in the film (and here I paraphrase): “They are not the Church. We are the Church.” While a single example, this statement reminds us, today, on World AIDS Day 2008, that throughout its history, AIDS/HIV has been entangled with religion—for good and ill. As w…
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…grassroots AIDS movement challenged the Catholic Church’s role in AIDS/HIV politics in the United States; in doing so, they challenged, as well, who “owned” the Church. As one organizer argues in the film (and here I paraphrase): “THEY are not the Church. We are the Church.” While a single example, this statement reminds us, today, on World AIDS Day 2008, that throughout its history, AIDS/HIV has been entangled with religion—for good and ill. As w…
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…d more recently by our gay brothers and sisters who couldn’t yet live the truth of their identities. Today, we are thinking about a different kind of commitment made under duress. A big part of our financial crisis was caused by a banking system which misled and pressured, which up-sold and implored us to sign without reading, where fraud was rampant, and where caution was absent. Because of those external problems, many good hardworking people w…
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…e only relevant for their own time, this would mean none of it is relevant today. It’s only the continuing relevance of the whole Bible, including the curses, that would give modern Israel a claim to ancient roots. The “settler colonialist” critique is that today’s Israel is less an offshoot of ancient history and more a modern project made possible by Western European empires. Without the direct relevance of the Bible, that’s harder to deny. Yet…
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…ch as the innocent and worthy “girl” who was deceived by a violent and unscrupulous husband, which helped promote identification with audiences. Today, however, such profiles are supplemented by actual visuals. Images of hard-working and non-threatening gay couples with their children enhance that audience identification even further. I’m interested in your observation that religion is a “malleable tool” where marriage debates are concerned. Right…
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…zerrad believes that in a “feminized” America “the Left” is threatened by Trump’s virility: Trump is undeniably manly and for that he must be destroyed like all other manly men. He laments that the “defense of manliness” is too often the preserve of online influencers like Andrew Tate, when “it should be a bread and butter issue for the Right.” Finally, he claims that Christians “are the last large segment of society to still offer some opposition…
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…e it is so blatantly obvious. Meyer assumes that intelligence as we see it today—the kind of intelligence that builds a car or reads a book review—can be equated with a non-materialistic intelligence that’s capable of transforming the very material of the natural world. How does this intelligence operate? It’s unclear. How could it be that human intelligence, which must make its mark on the world through straightforward, material means, is essenti…
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…ve we Christians gotten over this—and you Muslims haven’t? Which means the reader’s question is actually packing a lot of punch, and can be fruitfully turned around on him. On all of us. When is fighting okay? What kind of fighting okay? What kinds of justifications for the use of force are acceptable? Is violence more acceptable if it’s framed in secular terms, and more reprehensible if it’s prosecuted religiously? Why should the reasons for viol…
Read More…iencing will be phenomenal enough to share. Choosing a Tour Company I’ve already said this, but I repeat: there has to be a better way to choose. Later I will comment on how the logistics on the ground are managed as a way to suggest how someone coming after me might narrow this choice. I would prefer a lot more interactive communication as the preparations go along. I also hear from friends that they’ve had better communications before departure;…
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