Religion Dispatches
…of intimidation over the church,” Alliance attorney Erik Stanley told the Washington Post. “It is the job of the pastors of America to debate the proper role of church in society. It’s not for the government to mandate the role of church in society.” This argument, however, ignores a crucial point: Tax exemption amounts to public subsidy. The protection from taxation—corporate taxes, property taxes, sales taxes—represents, in fact, an extraordina…
Read More
…jections is, however, a different matter. This detailed explainer from the Washington Post‘s Emma Brown and Jon Swaine covers the territory thoroughly. Barrett, Pres. Trump’s latest get-out-of-jail-card Supreme Court nominee, is notably a strong, and particular, sort of Catholic. She’s reliably horrible on abortion and women’s rights. She is widely expected to be a vote to strike down Roe v. Wade (or at least any legislation that aims to weaken it…
Read More
…this point. I plan on watching the inauguration, but any theological content will come either from Rev. James Lowery’s benediction or from Aretha Franklin’s singing. As for prayer, if you want to hear some real prayers in Washington DC, go to any Watch Night Service the night before the inauguration. I guarantee you, you’ll hear some folks with real pain and troubles calling out for help, rather than prayers coming from whitewashed tombs….
Read More
…id Monday, there are probably a few who dislike Trump’s little wink to the Washington press corps, saying “it’s a Bible,” God forbid not my Bible, the result being a heightened and painful awareness of his pandering displays of empty piety. However, white evangelical Christians disgusted by this behavior have probably been disgusted for some time. The photo op didn’t drive them away. It was just one more reason for leaving. White evangelicals taki…
Read More…ing on relationships with young men. MetroWeekly, an LGBT news magazine in Washington, D.C., reported this week that ACLJ officials had confirmed that staff attorney James Henderson, a married father of eight, had been fired recently after a blog reported that he is gay. Henderson has also reportedly been an adjunct professor at Regent University. MetroWeekly notes that the ACLJ has scrubbed all traces of Henderson’s bio and writings from its webs…
Read More
…avoidance by corporations and the wealthy. That reality, an open secret in Washington, immediately falsifies the idea that U.S. corporate tax rates are too high in relation to those of other developed countries. Our effective corporate rates are actually much lower than those of comparable countries. Falsification #2 concerns the alleged link between lower taxes and job creation: the hoary trickle-down theory that refuses to die, despite multiple…
Read More…ed a mosque, and had something in Arabic hanging on his door. A November 6 Washington Post headline reads, “Suspect, devout Muslim from Va., wanted Army discharge, aunt said.” This explanatory variant for the attacks leads one to his religion, not his experiences. It is difficult to discern whether Major Hasan’s religious faith has become the object of all this attention because it is assumed that deeply religious people don’t engage in killing, o…
Read More
…Institute Senior Fellow David DeWolf has just announced his candidacy for Washington State’s Supreme Court. *This post originally stated “Luskin argues not just that atheists have found evolution to be useful, but that evolution in itself is inherently anti-religious.” While Luskin does argue that many Americans have grounds to associate evolution with “anti-religious activities and rhetoric,” he does not state that evolution is inherently anti-r…
Read More
…politics, and the Middle East: Christian Zionists support Israel. When in Washington, they will frame this support—frequently described as biblically mandated love—in political and policy terms, such as opposing a nuclear deal with Iran or negotiations with the Palestinians. (Or, more recently, supporting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming speech to a joint session of Congress.) But at church, on religious television, in books, and at r…
Read More
…aming and what’s wrong with it, take Jennifer Rubin’s recent column in The Washington Post, “Trump Idolatry has Undermined Religious Faith” in which she laments “the damage the MAGA movement has wrought to religious values” (emphasis in original). By contrasting the two, Rubin thus relegates authoritarian attitudes and behaviors, as well as racist and anti-immigrant sentiment, to a position outside the category of “religious values,” even though s…
Read More