Religion Dispatches
…ported his election. He’s not happy with the way things are going, but for better or worse, it shows the system is working in fine Niebuhrian fashion. Niebuhr was sharply aware of (and often amused by) the shortcomings of political leaders. They were only human, after all. But he also believed that humility was not simply a personal virtue, but something thrust upon leaders by the unending pressure of competing interests in the democratic process….
Read More…ng the line” (and fomenting outrage among base conservatives about Obama’s use of executive order—never mind the Bush administration’s use of the same) is meant to distract from the fact that the GOP does not have a viable, reasonable strategy for addressing the broken immigration system in a way that balances even the interests of its own stakeholders. Yes, immigration is one of those big-time challenges that requires an everyone-at-the-table s…
Read More…nd had an influential role in drafting the Council’s document on religious freedom. Murray also ran into trouble for critiquing the church’s teaching on birth control and its attempt to have that teaching written into civil law. Although he evidently personally believed in the teaching, Murray argued that in a pluralistic modern society, contraceptive use was a private, not a public, matter. Government, he wrote to Cardinal Cushing of Boston in 19…
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…te-sponsored wickedness and the canons of true politeness do not ban their use. When you use policy (rather than a gun) to kill innocent people, it’s called murder. When you ruin people by stripping them and their children of basic health care, that constitutes morally criminal assault. And make no mistake, when you boycott the inauguration (and promise resistance to) a presidency pre-announced as a compound of bigotry, misogyny, and the shredding…
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…ms to me that if we probe the reasons for this, as well as the connections between anti-abortion and anti-queer attitudes and politics, we’ll come away with a renewed sense of why there’s no conflict between pointing out the misogyny of the forced-birth movement and working to counter the erasure of transmasculine folks from discussion of abortion and other reproductive health-related concerns. Misogyny and patriarchy are, after all, at the heart…
Read More…as observed, and so might well respond that statements about homosexuality used in Persona Humana are those of psychologists and biblical writers, not its own. But no amount of indirection can obscure the Vatican’s decision to use this vilifying language and not some other, in Persona Humana as well as in the much more widely read Catechism of the Catholic Church. And have no doubt, such language has serious effects. Here in the US, the media regu…
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…politicians can appeal to spiritual leaders and gain their endorsement because the opportunities for abuse and ambition are too rampant. The same quid pro quo corruption that taints those tempted by lobbyists will await pastors when their support can yield inexhaustible American power. This is why America has passed laws to preserve the dignity and purity of the pastoral office, exchanging tax exemption (a unique phenomenon in the world) with the…
Read More…n Americana soundscape for what Nashville country actually sounds like—because the show’s version of the country industry sounds way better than the reality. In crafting a “pure” country music scene unfolding in a mythical Nashville, ABC adopts a deep and gutsy ironic stance, because in reality, the roots/alt-country community has set its face like flint against mainstream country, and a pop sound won a long time ago. Like the idealized, calcified…
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…who was murdered in 2012 by a neighborhood watchman, George Zimmerman, because he was presumed to be a menace by virtue of wearing a hoodie and strolling through a gated community. As Zimmerman told a 911 dispatcher, “these assholes always get away.” Or the Black birder, Christian Cooper, in Central Park in the summer of 2020, who was falsely accused by a white woman of “threatening” her. His threat? Asking her to keep her dog on a leash. Recall i…
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…eeder.” Thoreau’s point was that the capitalist’s philanthropy wasn’t much better. The hypocritical cover of philanthropic enterprises remains in use today. The travel writer and novelist Paul Theroux wrote earlier this month in the New York Times about communities across the South where factories have closed as jobs went overseas, a shift that has been broadcast as part of an effort “to uplift impoverished people” around the world. But such heroi…
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