Religion Dispatches
…rades to the site—an enhanced reading experience, better integration with social media, peace on earth. (We’ll be updating via our newsletter, here.) It’s our birthday, but it’s you who deserve the party (and the gluten-free, kosher, vegan, cruelty-free cake). Thank you for reading, for writing, and for your thoughtful and dynamic engagement with the ever-evolving question of religion in public life and culture. Yours, The Eds. …
Read More
…s of abortion rights and LGBTQ inclusion, can obtain “get out of criticism free” cards simply because they are outspoken opponents of Christian nationalism. Clearly we need better language to address anti-democratic Christian beliefs. So how does one responsibly cover Christian nationalists these days? To begin with, we must find language that doesn’t allow for the easy whitewashing of “respectable” Christians who hold authoritarian theological be…
Read More…exuberance. Sorta like skydiving tandem before following up my lessons for free-fall skydiving. That way I can focus on the details I am trying to learn now and be better prepared. As far as umrah, the lesser pilgrimage, goes; it stands to reason that people can visit the ka’abah any time of the year. And so it is. There are still the same ihram prescriptions. There are still certain rites that should be performed. But unless a journey to Makkah c…
Read More
…ing things like “go back to the Middle East, you pedophiles.” We should be free to criticize all religions, Islam included, but that doesn’t mean we should feel free to deride and scorn its adherents. It should go without saying that this isn’t a problem with atheism, but it is a problem among atheists and it’s one that is being largely ignored. 9/11 is frequently lifted up as the genesis of “New Atheism,” and it’s not uncommon to see people at at…
Read More
…istianity function so closely with some of the core American ideals around free-market capitalism, wealth and consumerism. Prosperity gospel, for instance, only makes logical sense in a system of free-market capitalism. Those core American ideals have come under assault in very public ways when measured against the yardstick of liberation theology and faith-based social justice initiatives. By Tuesday afternoon, August 29, news sources were report…
Read More…similar but far more significant quandary. The nightmare scenario involves free and fair elections in Egypt that put a “radical” Islamist government into power. This government then enacts foreign policy decisions hostile to US (and Israeli) interests and hence serves to “destabilize the region.” The US and Israel lose a key ally in the region, ushering in a new period of unrest. Forestalling this scenario, commentators are arguing that this is n…
Read More…ng to be a leader for all Kansans, so that we can continue our legacy as a Free State, where discrimination and bigotry – against anyone – is not tolerated.” Why is this so good (or at least why am I so excited by it)? Let me count the ways: It’s true. Check the Holland site for the citations, which are difficult to refute. Lou Engle has horrible politics. Brownback should have his judgment questioned for hanging around with him. More to the point…
Read More
…ul cues like opposition to abortion that signal the moral acceptability of Republican candidates who would take away their health insurance and funnel massive tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. And by promoting organizations like American Heritage Girls, conservative Catholic leaders can ensure that tomorrow’s parishioners stay in their hermetically sealed cultural and political bubbles and that our national identity will be more divided than e…
Read More
…battle against the contraceptive mandate dealt more in falsehoods and hysteria than facts or the nuances of Catholic moral theology. Ironically, it took freeing Notre Dame from the mandate for it to realize it had been free all along….
Read More
…sed to secede from the Union. Winston County, Alabama, declared itself the Free State of Winston. Unionist farmers and woodsmen in Jones County, Mississippi, declared the Free State of Jones.” By February 1864, Davis despaired: “Public meetings of treasonable character, in the name of state sovereignty, are being held.” Thus states’ rights as an ideology was contradictory and could not mobilize the white South for the long haul. What mobilized the…
Read More