Religion Dispatches
…half. There were still probably 80 empty seats, and it was clear that some number of attendees had free tickets. The largest financial supporter of the event was a local news/talk radio station and its representatives were the only media allowed in. As I arrived with my Religion Dispatches press badge they stopped me before I even got to the door. I chatted with an AP reporter and he said AP had been trying for weeks to gain media access—but that…
Read More…eptable as long as it is for the pleasure of the men writing the laws? The next step in this sort of protest is to wear the niqab and nothing else. Then, the women will get tickets, not for being nude, but for being clothed. In my opinion, that would show the absolute absurdity of the state trying to control women’s dress. I have written elsewhere that this sort of action, of controlling a woman’s body, is simply male penis worship run amok. These…
Read More…true and that evolution is a lie. As an example of its scientific rigorousness, one of the exhibits argues that dinosaurs in the Garden of Eden were all vegetarian. In addition to Noah’s Ark, which developers claim will be built to scale, there will also be a replica of the Tower of Babel, a walled city similar to ancient times, live animal shows and a children’s play area and a 1st Century Medieval Village. There will be no roller coasters or ot…
Read More
…hared a dream. Gerbert encouraged Otto to see himself as a second Charlemagne—one with royal Byzantine blood. Otto could reunite Rome and Constantinople, expanding the Holy Roman Empire (then just parts of Germany and Italy) to recreate the vast unified realm of the Caesars. Otto and Gerbert brought two of the scourges of Europe—the Vikings in the north and the Hungarian Magyars in the east—into the Christian fold. They established the Polish Cath…
Read More…d themselves at the center of the plans of Almighty God, building “multi-generational faithfulness”; a moving and heady experience, no doubt. On the Daily Show, Huckabee responded to Stewart’s charge that Barton is a theologian not a historian by saying that he doesn’t believe that Barton is advocating an establishment of religion. But Barton’s effort to shape how history is taught in public schools, seen in the context of his philosophy of histor…
Read More
…ot the case. But I am cognizant of the very powerful public relations machine that has turned an ecclesial ocean liner on a dime, transformed an all but written-off patriarchy into one of the most inviting, benevolent monarchies the world has seen in modern times. But substantive structural and doctrinal issues do not evaporate just because the pope does not wear Prada. Surely some of the “credit” for this PR blitz goes to former Fox News and Time…
Read More
…et in the early nineties for most people consisted largely of acquiring plane tickets, reading relatively static documents, and emailing acquaintances. By 2004, the year before John Paul died, search engines had become sophisticated and powerful, and the immensely popular online world Second Life was in its third year. MySpace had appeared the year before, and Mark Zuckerberg was feverishly writing the code that would become Facebook. YouTube was…
Read More
…ed earlier, when even they weren’t rigorous enough he went his own way, alone. The necessary fragmentation of sectarianism is an important part of this story as well. It could have gone the other way, and Tertullian deployed all of his considerable rhetorical skills to push the Christian party further in the absurdist direction he preferred. It does appear that a similar kind of factionalism is currently at work in the culture of Republicanity. Wh…
Read More…side of Temple Square, cheerfully singing hymns from the screens of their iPhones or from green-backed hymnals, while a clutch of protestors—evangelical Christians, mostly, the same familiar, ragged gang materializing every conference—takes its place behind barricades on a small patch of grass. A stranger, upon learning that I don’t have one of the highly-coveted tickets to the Sunday Conference sessions, spontaneously offers me his last extra. Mi…
Read More…Back from my Bloggingheads hiatus, I talk with Get Religion’s Mollie Hemingway about whether Mitt Romney’s plan to discuss his Mormonism tonight at the Republican National Convention benefit his candidacy: And we also discussed the significance of the fact that Barack Obama is the only Protestant on both presidential tickets: …
Read More