Religion Dispatches
Rick Perry’s decision to stick by his rhetorical guns at the presidential debate last week and continue to insist that Social Security is a “Ponzi scheme” and a “monstrous lie” has drawn mixed reactions from fellow conservatives, and attacks from his presidential rivals, most immediately Mitt Romney. Michele Bachmann, too, will reportedly criticize him at the Tea Party-sponsored debate tonight in Tampa, Florida. A Bachmann adviser tells the Washi…
Read MoreThis week’s earthquake along the East Coast damaged the National Cathedral in Washington DC. Church attendance is dropping faster among those who don’t have college degrees. Meanwhile, Duke sociologist Mark Chaves finds that Americans are losing faith in their religious leaders. When it comes to baptisms, some are dunkers and some are drunkers. A Sacramento priest showed up to an infant baptism too inebriated to sprinkle the kids. The priest has…
Read MoreMany of us have talked for years along the lines first sketched (I think) by Gore Vidal: i.e., that we don’t have a two-party system in the U.S., we have a single party—the Party of Wealth—with two branches. But this talk was heard among the chattering classes only. Officially the Democratic Party and most individual Democrats could still be counted upon to mouth traditional New Deal-ish rhetoric about standing up for working families, keeping co…
Read MoreFirst, as fellow RD blogger Julie Ingersoll has pointed out, Breivik’s more interested in Christianity as pan-European culture than as piety. Violent Islamic extremists don’t find traditional religion compelling either; in fact, the more religiously rooted you are in Islam, the less likely you are to even sympathize with violent rhetoric, let alone engage in violent action. (Contrary to the common bias that religious observance makes violent acti…
Read MoreWhy, exactly, do we regard debt as “sovereign”? Yes, I know that “sovereign debt” is a technical term in economics. But allow me to make a play on words in order to make an important point. All around the world (except here in the U.S.) we are seeing angry protests erupt against harsh austerity measures imposed by lenders. The Greeks, for example, aren’t stupid: they know that behind the harsh terms laid down by European finance ministers and the…
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Pseudo-historian and Christian reconstructionist David Barton must believe America’s Founding Fathers had time-traveling capabilities, flitting merrily back and forth between the centuries, spying on us and our modern ways. How else does one reconcile this recent interview that caught the eye of Right Wing Watch? Barton says that the writers of the Constitution settled the whole debate over teaching evolution – at least 70 years before Charles Da…
Read MoreRep. Paul Ryan refused a Bible—handily notated so he could pick out the passages on the poor—offered to him by James Salt of Catholics United, at Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition conference last week. Salt was working with Faithful America, an affiliated organization of Faith in Public Life. Some progressives think this is noteworthy, or at least revealing about Ryan’s true faith. Digby, for example, highlighted it on her blog, which I fo…
Read MoreDavid Barton, a revisionist historian whose writings essentially claim that Jesus was a supply-side loving capitalist and loved Americans more than people from other countries, has been a steady fixture in Christian nationalist circles going back to the early 90s. As vice chairman of the Texas Republican party, he played a significant role in the 2004 presidential election, courting the Christian right in Ohio with “family values” issues. But as…
Read MoreThe “strengths and weaknesses” bill introduced by Tennessee State Rep. Bill Dunn, R-Knoxville, passed overwhelmingly in the House last week by a 70 to 23 vote. While Dunn insists that the bill is not anti-evolution, but merely about improving teaching in the public schools, comments by the bill’s supporters reveal a stunning hostility towards science and education. Andy Sher writing for the Chattanooga Free Press, quotes bill-supporter Rep. Richa…
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Irving (Yitz) Greenberg once said about talking or writing about the Holocaust, “Don’t say anything that you wouldn’t say in front of burning children.” It’s an ominous comment, emotionally charged, and deeply felt. But as Michael Wyschogrod once said to me, referring to this comment, “Yitz then wrote hundreds of pages about the Holocaust.” Yitz did so, I assume, because he couldn’t stay silent, even as he advocated silence. I say this not to com…
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