Religion Dispatches
…ca for a select Brown Muslim population. Still African-American Muslims outnumber them, and face double invisibility and erasure: from within and from without. So, if you ever wonder why I don’t comment on some of the “top” stories in the news about Islam in America, I intentionally try not to respond to sensationalism. I don’t comment about a story if the story already gets enough media attention and if the story does not help script the dynamics…
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…e of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities. I cannot count the number of times I have heard well-meaning, good-hearted people respond to this appeal, saying, “Things are a lot better for gay people today than they were several years (or decades) ago. In time, our society (or churches) will come around on this issue.” To these friends and others, I must say, “It’s time.” For Lucas, Brown, Clementi, Walsh, and Chase the time is up. For t…
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…zines, but today much of the reading public seems more interested in iconoclasm. When the new pope is soon shown within Time’s familiar red frame he will likely appear in full and flattering light, but only briefly. Is it any wonder that the last newsweekly standing would gravitate toward stories of once-unquestioned authority undermined and reduced to a shadow of its former significance? This is, after all, a story it knows quite well. *This ess…
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…ogressive values like support for reproductive rights to win back working class Catholics. Krueger says that the best political way forward for the Democrats is what he calls a “50-state/all constituencies” strategy that includes a strong Catholic outreach component. He notes that Hillary Clinton’s outreach to Catholics was notably less robust than Barack Obama’s. She didn’t recruit prominent Catholic backers the way that Obama did and skipped imp…
Read More…n’s decline has less to do with personal religiosity than with events. The last time religious influence was deemed to be in sharp decline was the 1960s. Political protests along with cultural upheavals left many wondering about the future of traditional institutions. But during the Reagan years, and especially following 9/11, the significance of religion—its association with social stability, community cohesion, and traditional values—raised appr…
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…y, buying vacation homes, expensive cars and clothes, and traveling first class with an entourage. Then it all came crashing down. In March 1987 Bakker resigned in disgrace after his 1980 sexual encounter with Jessica Hahn in a Florida hotel room became public. Stories emerged about gay relationships and visits to prostitutes. By the end of the year, PTL was in bankruptcy, headed for liquidation. In 1989 Bakker was convicted of wire and mail fraud…
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…hief among them contention over the pope’s claim to universal authority. A number of violent incidents over two hundred years, from both sides of Christianity’s two halves, helped solidify the separation. These included the Byzantine massacre of Catholics living in Constantinople in 1182, the sacking of Thessaloniki by Catholics in 1185, and their pillage of Constantinople in 1204. Finally, the establishment of Rome-allied episcopacies in traditio…
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…he secular authorities), chilul hashem (the desecration of God’s name) and lashon hara (spreading gossip) are invoked to coerce people into keeping quiet. Going to a secular court without a rabbi’s permission can be interpreted as violating Jewish law. Simply speaking out can have terrible consequences. Last year, Yehoshua Finkelstein, a 20-year-old abuse victim from the Orthodox enclave of Lakewood, New Jersey, died of an overdose in an apparent…
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…s to block all access to Twitter in the country because of objections to “blasphemous content.” The IHEU reports being contacted by an increasing number of secularist groups organizing on Facebook, including groups in Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Malaysia, Pakistan, Tunisia, Turkey, and Sudan. In all of this, the United States is an anomaly since it rejects even laws against religious hate speech, which were f…
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…ed by businesses like Annex challenge the ACA’s contraception mandate on a number of grounds. The most significant challenge invokes the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, claiming that the insurance coverage mandate imposes a substantial burden on the free exercise of religion. Annex Medical lost its claim because the court concluded that the mandate does not impose a substantial burden on religious exercise and in the widely-publicized H…
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