Religion Dispatches
…ot for everyday ordinary folks, not for its Prophets, not for the priestly class, not for those seeking spiritual enlightenment. On the contrary, really, really good sexual release (as in orgasm, in case that is too obscure) is supposed to clear one from preoccupation with such, and thereby make it easier to attain spiritual clarity. Marriage is not a sacrament, it is a contract. The thing that is being negotiated actually is access to one’s partn…
Read More…mented for years. “He was threatened to get beat up every day,” friend and classmate Nick Hughes said. “Sometimes in classes, kids would act like they were going to punch him and stuff and push him. Some people at school called him names,” Hughes said, saying most of those names questioned Lucas’ sexual orientation. And just to show that bullying isn’t merely a high school problem, there’s news of a Rutgers University freshman who killed himself a…
Read More…blican by doling out cash to Eddie Long? Gerson has recently co-authored a book on religion and politics with former Bush staffer Peter Wehner, now a fellow at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center. On CBN, the pair was finger-wagging at Obama for screwing up how he talks to evangelicals. “Has he blown it with Christians?” asked host Jennifer Wishner. “In some ways he has,” Gerson replied, adding that Obama had an unprecedented outreach…
Read More
…these days they are going to write the whole thing up and read it to their class and find out if there is anyone who wants to join them. No one is going to listen to what their teachers have to say, or their parents, or the people who write books and articles in the newspaper and can’t think of anything except the same old things nobody believes in. Peace conferences in Madrid, declarations of principles, Cairo agreements, Washington agreements, r…
Read More
…nterprise is an invaluable asset for apprehending how we got here. Her new book chronicles Wal-Mart’s role in mainstreaming evangelical and free market values even as it became the world’s largest public corporation and the nation’s biggest private employer. A critical appraisal of how religion, politics, and economics were interwoven in post-Vietnam American culture and society, To Serve God and Wal-Mart is also a bracing reminder that we, among…
Read More
…of religion.” Or, heck, that financial policy should be based on real-life numbers rather than the numbers that banks would like to pretend are real. We are at a point where it’s no longer clear that a large, vibrant conservative movement exists outside of policy areas that are supposed transcend conventional political divides. The constellation of interests that now define conservatism include being anti-science, anti-privacy, anti-Constitution,…
Read More
…hearings will be used by publishers to determine what goes into their textbooks. As the second-largest bulk purchaser of textbooks in the country, Texas determines what students learn not only in Texas, but in many other states, where districts purchase the same versions. The board members have appointed six experts, and, the choices appear carefully crafted to be fair and balanced to differing views: one side representing a commitment to sound e…
Read More
…tc.). By writing his whole life’s story, albeit with the sexual failing as bookends to the rest, Weakland signals that he, too, is able to put the public scandal into perspective. I wonder how I would feel if he had been a conservative bishop. But I like to think that there is something to the matter of forgiveness and to seeing lives as wholes, rather than parts, that transcends all that. I learned a lot from this book. Beyond the facts about mon…
Read More
…s do not enjoy all of the same benefits of marriage and, thus, have second-class status. These findings have prompted a new legislative push for same-sex marriage within the state; debate over the measure will begin this fall. To fight potential legislation that would provide marriage rights to same-sex couples in New Jersey, the bishops have joined conservative Catholic organizations like the Knights of Columbus that are aligned with right-wing R…
Read More…he economy has brought more layoffs and financial turbulence to the middle class, the promoters of positive thinking have increasingly emphasized this negative judgment: to be disappointed, resentful, or downcast is to be a ‘victim’ and a ‘whiner.’” It’s satisfying, in a cranky contrarian way, to watch a writer as smart as Ehrenreich take aim at something as universally revered as dogged optimism. Yet while America’s obsessive positivity might be…
Read More