Religion Dispatches
…British Empire that occupied his native India, as well as to apartheid in South Africa.“ Clarkson told Religion Dispatches that that chance encounter was his “opening into the world of politics and clashing religious worldviews as I considered conscientious objection to the war in light of my Christian upbringing and Gandhi’s powerful call to conscience.“ Clarkson has written for Salon, Mother Jones, The Nation, Ms., The Christian Science Monitor…
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…: So, how does one teach on US Religion (or any course in religion) in the South? In my experience—and based on stories you have told me, maybe even more-so at the University of Tennessee—classes include quite a few conservative evangelicals who take very particular, even rigid, stances toward the subject. I imagine that it’s a bigger factor in the Bible Belt than in most other places. How do you deal with this? For example, my New Testament class…
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…and declines in eight. However, the net effect has been an increase in the number of states in the moderate category. In this sense, the Christian Right has been ‘spreading out’ across the states, especially in the South, Midwest, and West. Thus, Christian conservatives have become a staple of politics nearly everywhere.” In short, John McCain’s personal preferences were irrelevant: his route to the presidency was only viable with the help of Chri…
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…case in Mogadishu, and I’ve seen it for myself in Sudan. I currently live south of the country’s “front line,” contested area, Abyei which Griswold profiles through the story a local southern Sudanese chief who knew the fate that awaited him and his people when she was interviewing him in the spring of 2008. In May of that year, chief Nyol Paduot and his people were forced to flee for their lives when northern Sudanese troops razed the nearby tow…
Read More…n eye…We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost… When attempting to sort through the controversy over Wright’s remarks, there seems little reason to linger over the comments about September 11, which do not differ greatly from those offered by a not…
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…to eighty percent of all Americans believe in God, an extraordinarily high number compared with other industrialized nations. But what are the characteristics of this God? Do all Americans base their beliefs on a literal reading of the Bible? Is it the same God if some Americans use the term in its personal, theistic sense referring to a transcendent God in heaven and some use it to refer to a pantheistic, immanent power that infuses all of nature…
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…, who had developed a business that extended from North America to Europe, South America, and the Philippines, met a number of politically powerful Republican politicians and conservative religious leaders, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Iran/Contra figure Oliver North, and then-Senator Rick Santorum. Religious leaders like Charles Stanley (a former distributor), Dr. Robert Schuller and the late Dr. D. James Kennedy of Florid…
Read More…heology, the Marxist-influenced school of thought developed by Central and South American theologians, and waged an aggressive media campaign in support of the Reagan administration’s policies in Nicaragua, El Salvador and elsewhere, alleging links between liberal church leaders and Marxist guerillas. After the Cold War, Naughton continues: The IRD turned its attention from the mainline churches’ activities in Central America to the churches’ inte…
Read More…romise diminished the pro-slavery representation in Congress, and thus the Southern states’ political power, compared to counting slaves as full persons. (Since slaves couldn’t vote, increasing their “representation” in Congress actually increased the power of the slaveholding states to keep slavery in place.) But it’s hard to argue that the rule was an “anti-slavery” provision when it resulted from the need to compromise with pro-slavery delegate…
Read More…ericans. The Ahmadis are a movement that originated in the 19th century in South Asia. They are generally considered to be the first group to come to the United States in an organized way and were heavily involved in converting African-Americans to Islam in the early part of the 20th century. In Pakistan, they are targeted by certain sectors as being heretics. This history of being a persecuted minority, but also being fairly cosmopolitan, should…
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