Religion Dispatches
…re was the usual riff that Obamacare was “socialized medicine,” a stunning number of the comments groused about the birth control mandate. There’s significant evidence from earlier Pew Foundation polling that the Catholic bishops’ opposition to the contraceptive mandate and the subsequent war on “religious liberty” they ginned up was a major factor in alienating white Catholics from the Democratic Party. The number of white Catholics who said the…
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…cepted part of society. In the Abbasid caliphate many mukhannathun would become personal companions and courtiers of the caliph. Trained in the art of music, poetry, astronomy, and wit, no court was complete without them. According to ibn Mansur al-‘Abi, the mukhannathun became so valuable to the Islamic courts that one boasted: “We are the best of people, when we speak, you laugh; when we sing, you are ravished with delight; when we lie down, you…
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…ustice. It is untenable for us as Americans, as human beings, and as Jews. Combining two ancient Jewish teachings, the question about our collective future becomes this: if we cannot pursue justice with the stranger and the oppressed, who are we? Put differently, the imperative to do justice—not in some hypothetical, metaphysical realm, but here and now, where we stand—must be seen not as a suggestion for altruism or charity, but rather as an oppo…
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…an. 24 that it was dropping plans to host a June 12 Graham event, citing a number of statements by the evangelist “which we consider to be incompatible with our values.” Lest you think this is strictly a Brit thing, the same article notes that Graham has also been met with protests in Florida. He’s taken the news in typical stride: In a statement to Newsweek Jan. 28, Graham said he believes he is facing discrimination because of his religious beli…
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…in the Lakota style, not Navajo, which is the tribal affiliation of a good number of inmates in the Arizona prison system (an amazing fact that is a story for another time). So, even though a non-Indian might be compelled to be put on trial for killing people with his “ceremony,” it is Native American religion which will be the defendant in this case. Consider. James Ray’s defense might be compelled to bring in experts to argue that he did the cer…
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…f he gets into a fight in a bar, or behaves inappropriately with women, or commits any number of minor sins which ordinary people get away with every day—he lets down not only himself and his family, but his faith community and the Asian-American (and to some extent Asian) community as a whole, which currently views him as a hero. Can you imagine the pressure? And yet, so far at least, neither Tebow nor Lin has fallen. No crashed cars at three a.m…
Read More…ny moderate and progressive Mormons, pushing them to confront their own discomfort with aggressive political campaigning against the civil rights of same-sex couples and fostering in many a new commitment to supporting full equality under the law for LGBT people. Just this summer, since the Mormons Building Bridges contingent in the Salt Lake City LGBT Pride parade, we’ve seen a wave of Mormons come out to friends and family, including Mormons i…
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…st likely to indicate outright refusal to take a Covid-19 vaccine, while a number of other studies have also found that number hovering close to 25 percent. Journalists and academics alike have attempted to make sense of this discrepancy, pointing to existential fear, anti-intellectualism, and Christian nationalism as potential influences on American evangelicals’ vaccine antipathy. As a scholar of American evangelicalism and media, I am inclined…
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…cation, these two septuagenarian justices signaled their wish to resurrect Comstock laws. A casual observer might come to a myopic conclusion: these anti-abortion justices are invoking Comstock provisions in an effort to once again outlaw abortifacients. But that conclusion misses the bigger picture. By targeting abortion medication through Comstock laws, these justices would resurrect a capacious legal framework that’s anathema to an individual’s…
Read More…nd other Christians marching together at Pride. In recent years, the small number of Christians who turn up to protest against Pride have been vastly outnumbered by the Christians participating in it. Hill also noted religious support in the UK last April for a new law “to allow religious elements in civil partnerships, while last year the Quakers became the first major Christian denomination to resolve to carry out same-sex marriages.” Even here…
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