Religion Dispatches
…e generic, accessible, mainstream, family-oriented Christianity, but which promoted political views that are not so mainstream, especially when it came to patriarchy, homosexuality, and abortion. Now, in the context of an uptick in anti-abortion activism like “personhood amendments,” an announcement from presidential wannabe Mike Huckabee that he intends to make abortion his central issue, and the recent effort by Lila Rose to “expose” the “evils”…
Read More…only influence… just that it is an important one. Economics is seen as so central to a “biblical worldview” that it is the focus of much of the work of leading Reconstructionist Gary North. North’s earliest work (1973), widely used as a Christian school textbook, is entitled Introduction to Christian Economics and he was founder/owner of the publishing outfit Institute for Christian Economics (ICE). North has written on the Federal Reserve, infla…
Read More
…ed so that it can continue to shape the people. The idea of remembrance is central to the book’s message, and there is an educational aspect to that: The one who shares in the covenant is supposed to make known the ways and ordinances of God to later generations so that they remember as well. One striking thing about the content of the tradition is its humility. We might expect a nation’s founding stories to be of glory and victory, but Deuteron…
Read More
…billion adherents to a handful of verses cherry-picked from the Qur’an. A central component of the systematic demonization is his caricature of Muslims and Muhammad as illiterate, perverted, sexist, and responsible for slavery. Federer repeatedly described Muhammad as illiterate, suggesting he was ignorant and making no mention of the fact that literacy at that time would have been rare. In fact, Federer changed the traditional story in which Muh…
Read More
…No longer the face of man, this is the face of a wild beast. This was the central moral challenge for Stoicism, in fact—how to avoid horrific transformations like that. This metamorphosis was not playful like Ovid’s god-inspired chicanery; it was terrifying, and all too human. The wolves outside the city walls threaten the life of the city. The wolves hidden among us may threaten the city even more. These are powerful mythic tropes, both the Gree…
Read More
…s an engaging argument. Beck is certainly right that church is no longer a central gathering place for the majority of believers and seekers. And, it seems, too, that Facebook has taken up much of the chat about “football,… good schools,… local politics,” and other matters that Beck sees as the “main draw” of routine ecclesial practice in days gone by. Yet the sneak peek Beck offers of his own research appears to undermine the argument. Not Enough…
Read More
…entually the missionaries embrace this metaphorical model of religion. The central female character, Nabalungi, takes Cunningham’s stories literally, and against the backdrop of her blighted village sings a wrenching song about reaching the storied paradise, Salt Lake City, where, she imagines, the warlords are friendly and the Red Cross is on every corner. Her belief inevitably leads to despair, as she learns that the paradise Cunningham has spo…
Read More
…shut down regular operations at its massive headquarters in Shinanomachi, central Tokyo, and set its thousands of employees and ordinary member volunteers to work on relief efforts. Staff members who ordinarily run the administrative headquarters and publish the daily newspaper Seikyo shinbun are gathering food, blankets, portable toilets, and other supplies, which they are transporting north to the disaster area. Soka Gakkai has opened its Cultu…
Read More…better or worse, in our culture, that time of reflection coincides with a central holiday in the Christian calendar (that was borrowed by Christians from the cultures that preceded it). But I digress. So I give gifts to those I love, to materially mark the fact that my real gift is my love for them (and I reflect on whether I tell/show them I love them enough during the rest of the year.) I send notes, emails and cards to people who have touched…
Read More…t marriage?” U.S. 9th Circuit Appeals Court Judge N. Randy Smith asked the central question as he and two other judges heard from both sides on whether California’s ballot measure banning marriage equality for gays and lesbians should stand. Charles Cooper, a lawyer who argued in favor of Prop. 8 using some difficult to follow circular logic, argued that California has a rational reason for distinguishing between same-sex and opposite sex couples,…
Read More