Religion Dispatches
…come together when saving a life is at stake. Dr. Fred Rosner agrees. In a 1999 journal article speculating on the eventuality of this technology, the Assistant Dean and Professor of Medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine wrote that, “…Judaism will look with favor upon this procedure to prolong or save the life of a human being who is ill or dying from organ failure. Although Jewish law forbids Jews to raise or eat pigs, no such prohibit…
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…fficial definition of religion: “I would describe religion in summary as a spiritual or non-secular belief system, held by a group of adherents, which claims to explain mankind’s place in the universe and relationship with the infinite.” His philosophical orientation misses much, and reveals that there is a long way to go for rethinking religion on pluralistic grounds. Toulson is still assuming that religion is a disembodied “belief system,” a set…
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…expectation from the traditional “silver dagger” song that this is perhaps 1909 or 1939, but certainly not within our lifetime). Whatever it was that happened, it could not have been entirely pretty: Seems every castle is made of sand The Great Destroyer sleeps in every man Here comes my baby, here comes my man With the silver dagger in his hand. And how can all these stories of barroom girls, morphine addicts, rape victims, murdering ghosts, and…
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…itish Catholics under 50 now say “same-sex marriage is right” compared with 16% of over-60s, and support for a ban on abortion has fallen to 14% amongst under-40s compared from a quarter amongst over-60s. The result is a Britain in which “faithful Catholics” according to official teaching are now a rare and endangered species. If we measure them by the criteria of weekly churchgoing, certain belief in God, taking authority from religious sources,…
Read More…o great lengths LGBT people have had to take to be able to worship both in spirit and in truth. The MCC, founded just a few short years before this tragedy, in 1968, by Rev. Troy Perry, has survived many acts of violence in its history, including a fire of “suspicious origin” that destroyed its Los Angeles headquarters in 1973. The denomination began for the simple reason that LGBT people were not welcome in mainstream congregations—not openly, an…
Read More…s for a very long time. When I arrived at the Missionary Training Center in 1985, sisters had to attend a 6 a.m. gym class. Even though it ended early enough that we were the only ones on the sidewalks during the very short trip back to our dorms, we still had to wear either sweat pants or shorts with tights under them—no bare legs—so that in the unlikely event that a young man ventured from his dorm early, he would not be overcome by lust at the…
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…seeking something (a zoning variance, better street lighting, sidewalk repairs, etc.) singling yourself out by refusing to take part in the prayer can be problematic. In a move that raised some eyebrows the Obama administration filed an amicus brief in support of Greece and the ADF. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli’s brief referred to the 1983 Marsh ruling, arguing that “Courts should not parse or evaluate the content of prayer.” The other brief…
Read More…cond Amendment (wherein the founders are invoked to oppose measures such as 1993’s Brady Bill). Even a devastating rebuke from a reviewer in the Wall Street Journal, who points out that “Jefferson’s religious beliefs are central to Mr. Barton’s thesis, in the service of which straw men are consumed in bonfires,” will (I believe) have little effect on the true intended audience. And for that reason, too, my question is why, with so many books worth…
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…nce existed mainly to train full-time pastors faced reductions in both the number of churches that could support such positions and the number of people eager to take the more challenging, but lower paying, church jobs that remained. Some seminaries shifted their missions to serve the academy or society more broadly, while others trained more part-time, second-career and lay pastors. These shifts were less abrupt than decisions to close or merge a…
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…sic investigators to uncover his forgeries. Hofmann was arrested in January 1986, pled guilty in January 1987, and sentenced to a life in prison. But even if the legal story climaxed surprisingly quickly, significant legacies remained long afterward. Pressure mounts from all sides Mark Hofmann didn’t create the wars over Mormon origins, but he certainly escalated them. Historians who’d been working to revise traditional narratives, including the f…
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