Religion Dispatches
…idents were reduced to fish in a barrel, up against the former Yugoslavian military, the fourth largest land force in the world, dominated by Serbs and designed to defend the former Yugoslavia from a possible Soviet invasion. The Bosniaks barely had an army. They were under an arms embargo. Something on the order of 5-10% of their population was killed. 10,000 in Sarajevo alone. But the country, and the people, survived—though I have no idea what…
Read More…he warned about the heist being pulled off on the American people by the “military-industrial” complex, a heist that is ongoing, and dripping in the blood of undeclared foreign wars. Teddy Roosevelt was a good conservative when he pioneered ecological sanity as was Abraham Lincoln when he took on slavery and supported state sponsored banks to encourage development, improve infrastructure and public education. Nelson Rockefeller was being a good c…
Read More…t fruit of conjugal intimacy,” one supposes?); “[S]afeguards” for military men and women that will protect them against “intrusively intimate commingling among attracteds…” (May I just note that how striking it is, literarily, that this document uses the phrase “steadfast embrace” to refer to a federal amendment, and “intrusively intimate commingling among attracteds” to refer to a workplace romance? I mean, that’s a fascinating authorial…
Read More…eekend. Army Captain Pratima Dharm is the first Hindu chaplain in the U.S. military. An Oregon faith-healing couple were convicted of felony criminal mistreatment when they chose to seek ritual faith healing for a growth over their daughter’s eye instead of medical care. The rector of a Muslim University in Russia was gunned down. Maksud I. Sadikov sought to revive local Sufi traditions of Islam as a counter to violence in the area. The Crystal Ca…
Read More…evelt’s signing of an executive order prohibiting racial discrimination by military contractors, by finally putting an end to a Bush-era executive order that permits religious organizations receiving federal grants to discriminate in hiring based on religion. Fifty-two civil liberties, faith, and other organizations signed on to CARD’s letter to the president. There is a press conference later today on Capitol Hill, at which members of Congress an…
Read More…araging Muslims; he’s saber rattling about “war chants” to make a case for military intervention in Syria or Iran; or he’s intentionally trying to distinguish himself from his pal John McCain who seems willing to differentiate between extremist Muslims and the mainstream faithful. Those are important points, but they all overlook what is, perhaps, the most troubling aspect of this mini-scandal: it fits within a growing pattern of elite non-Muslims…
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…s of many stripes, and memorialized in the monuments to the dead—including military martyrs, victims of disasters, and political heroes. Additionally, Dems have been whipped into religious frenzies here and there in recent memory; recall the fomenting religious mythology surrounding the nomination and presidential campaign of Obama (seems like decades ago…), which transposed his rise to political fame and his political message into sacred stories…
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…ranch of government and labor unions, but also in big corporations and the military. Despite this idiosyncratic platform, Hatfield thrived. Large numbers of Hatfield admirers at Fuller Seminary, Wheaton College, and the campus ministry InterVarsity Christian Fellowship formed the architecture of an emerging evangelical left in the early 1970s. One InterVarsity leader at Kansas State University, citing his civil rights, anti-poverty, anti-war, and…
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…gical suspension of the ethical.” Suspension barely covers it. Jephthah, a military chieftan in the book of Judges, keeps a vow with God and sacrifices his daughter. No angel stays his hand. We remember child martyrs in the crusades, young Holocaust victims like Anne Frank, the deaths of Emmett Till and four little girls in Birmingham, Alabama. The children of the day care center in Oklahoma City. Our enduring image from that dark day is a fireman…
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…uld stick together. How did you come to be so independent? I grew up as a “military brat”—living all over the country, but going to high school in Michigan. I went to BYU and tried very hard to fit in like the kids from Arizona, California, and Utah. I dyed my hair blonde. I joined the Young Republicans. I went to Cleon Skousen lectures. And I wanted to get married, go to Washington, and work in the State Department. At the very last moment, with…
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