Religion Dispatches
…nd lecture. Yet without that particular ‘mood’ encouraging and informing rigorous and energetic exchange keeping our theological efforts flexible and informed … black theology is dead….
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…me of enormous personal choice, where religious affiliation feels like one flexible part of a curated identity, rather than a fixed inheritance. For a quick reality check: by today’s standards, Blumenbach was no great scientist. In his scholarship, major sources of evidence included the Book of Genesis and the aesthetics of human skulls. Also, setting Blumenbach aside, it’s pretty much impossible to find a coherent definition of Muslim that’s root…
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…ding Saudi Arabia—a nation rarely associated with women’s rights—have more flexible laws on abortion than what is allowed under SB 8. To be sure, Muslim traditions, texts, and communities aren’t free from the problems of sexism. And yes, the Taliban are unquestionably a repressive regime that denies the rights of Afghan women. But using Muslims and Islam to represent the essence of misogyny and oppression is not only reductive; it’s harmful—both i…
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…nted? I certainly think that the religious right has made it very clear, a number of times, whom they think God would like to be president. That’s not new. It’s possible that I was not following the Pentecostal world as closely previously, but I don’t know of this concerted effort to use media, like [Christian multimedia company] Charisma and these online networks, to really aggressively promote the idea that Donald Trump had been anointed by God…
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…elicalism’s boundaries may be becoming more permeable, its theologies more flexible. I hope he’s right, though I don’t share the optimism. Thus the book’s Conclusion that “the best-selling fiction gave the wrong answers” surprises because it’s in tension with this hope and with Silliman’s prior neutrality. These evangelical bestsellers, he finally suggests, “prepared readers to imagine the world in certain ways and to embrace certain values. It pr…
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…gelicalism’s flagship magazine, Christianity Today. Its women’s blog has a number of writers with diverse perspectives on women’s roles and many other issues. Ridiculing stay-at-home dads as “man fails,” the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood encourages evangelicals to live by the tenets of patriarchy (now rebranded as “complementarianism.”) Still many evangelical women often prefer egalitarian marriages, and they don’t seem to believe tha…
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…supported by Muslim terrorists and Islamophobes alike; a view capitalized upon by repressive Muslim governments and used as an excuse for war by Western ones. No legal system could have survived a thousand years without being flexible and adaptable. Understanding at least the basics of shariah, for both non-Muslims and Muslims, is essential to crippling Muslim terrorists, weakening repressive Muslim governments, and debunking Islamophobic rhetoric…
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…nd lecture. Yet without that particular ‘mood’ encouraging and informing rigorous and energetic exchange keeping our theological efforts flexible and informed … black theology is dead….
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…the parent’s knees or a bed, stay still during beatings with a “sturdy but flexible instrument,” not to scream, and not to criticize or express anger towards parents. Parents are to conclude beatings by holding children until they stop crying and apologize, then showing them “lavish affection.” Children must reciprocate this affection and be “peaceful” in order for the ritual to conclude. A child’s failure to be affectionate and peaceful after a b…
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…cal ties at work, I wanted to better understand the dynamics causing large numbers of people to adopt the interests of CWA and other Christian Right groups even when those ideas don’t necessarily have clear factual backing. I felt that a thoroughgoing treatment of how public persuasion and belief formation happens had been mostly ignored in scholarship, as most scholars simply see finite groups with finite beliefs, rather than asking critical ques…
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