Religion Dispatches
…ulation. In 2006 Dobson even head-butted Cizik in the press for supporting international regulations of emissions, calling his views ‘anti-capitalistic and [having] an underlying hatred for America.’ And who will Cizik be voting for come November 4? Unclear. Obama doesn’t have the experience all of us would like. I’m not in Washington to be an advocate for the Republican or the Democratic Party; that’s not my calling. I’m not an ideologue. I do wi…
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…ly branding Rwanda the first officially “Purpose-Driven nation,” after his international bestseller, The Purpose-Driven Life. The US government has fallen in line, pledging federal “faith-based” funding to augment Warren’s freelance foreign policy, which emphasizes Rwanda’s transformation (or, perhaps, conversion?) through small-scale capitalism and personal responsibility. Obama, meanwhile, has pledged to expand Bush’s Faith-Based Initiatives pro…
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…ve religion and politics, and he has been interviewed by many national and international media including CBS Evening News, ABC’s 20/20, the BBC (radio and television), and the Voice of America. Through a series of e-mail exchanges, we discussed the current state of the Religious Right, the growing influence and media presence of Pastor Rick Warren, efforts made by the Obama campaign to court evangelicals, and how an authentic Religious Left can wi…
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…ose Driven Network Summit organized, “to create The PEACE Coalition, a new international alliance of churches, businesses, ministries, universities, and other institutions.” P.E.A.C.E. is an acronym for: Promote reconciliation; Equip servant leaders; Assist the poor; Care for the sick; and Educate the next generation. “For the past four years, thousands of members of Saddleback Church have been testing prototypes of the P.E.A.C.E. Plan around the…
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…it distracts them from their true pursuit, salvation. The others who lack international connections are reluctant to advocate political reform because they have nowhere to turn for help in case of state persecution; some of these welcome the patronage of politicians. Others still refuse to buy into the dualism of sacred versus secular, preferring instead to see God as fully invested in humanity’s full experience—these consider democracy an arena…
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…Thus they exaggerate racism as an explanation and minimize a domestic and international division of labor that creates winners and losers across racial lines. Thus they are tempted to address these complexities, as Reverend Wright did, as if nothing has changed since Montgomery in 1955 and Birmingham in 1963. But things have changed and are more complicated now. For these reasons, King may be our inspiration, but he cannot be our guide. The King-…
Read More…nailed to a church door in Wittenberg in 1517) from a local dispute to an international cause celebre was the involvement of the printing press that had been invented a half century earlier. To say that Luther’s cause was helped by this new media is to almost lie by understatement, as the singularly wide distribution of his tracts utterly changed the terms of debate and put the religious establishment of his day on the popular defensive for perha…
Read More…ought thinkers such as Rev. Colemon and Rev. Michael Beckwith at the Agape International Spiritual Center in Los Angeles. It is true that some members of Christ Universal have voiced disappointment over Pearson’s selection. The problem seems to be his Pentecostal roots coupled with his lack of New Thought training. Pearson believes his inclusionist perspective to be consistent with New Thought teachings, however. Both affirm the radical, inclusive…
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…away with these things in the first place when you live with a very small number of people. 2) That ancient Israel was monotheistic from the get-go. I don’t think monotheism emerged until the Babylonian exile of the 6th century BCE—nearly half a millennium after King David and way, way after Moses and Abraham supposedly signed on to monotheism. 3) That Jesus said “Love your enemy” and espoused universal love. I think the emphasis on a love that c…
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…they hope to see the Second Coming of Jesus Christ in their lifetime. The numbers vary over time and due to the ways questions are structured. It is clear, however, that more people are excited by this type of apocalyptic belief than can be explained by counting the actual parishoners sitting in the pews in fundamentalist churches. Most of these folks, however, are not considering actual criminal acts or violence. Brenda E. Brasher notes that apo…
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